JYS loads up into the Chaparral 2J at Watkins Glen in July 1970 (LAT)
Apart from the Chaparral 2J Chev, name another car raced in 1970 that looks as edgy now as it did way back then?
I still remember flicking through Automobile Year 18 in Camberwell Grammar’s library in 1971 and flipping-my-14-year-old-lid at the sight of the 2J. My oldest mate remembers me saying, “Look at George Jetson’s car!” The only things missing were Jane, Judy, Elroy, and of course ‘rAstro!
John Surtees, Chaparral 2H Chev at Riverside in October 19692H butt at Riverside in October 1969. Of note is the world’s biggest fabricated aluminium De Dion rear axle and one of the worlds biggest radius rods. ZL1 Chev has a crossover inlet manifold to get the fuel injection trumpets out of the airstream, ditto routing of extractors. Enormous wing fitted in this shot – you can see the vertical support – which is not installed in the shot above, remember too that this car was originally designed and built with the driver fully enclosed inside, something John Surtees pushed strongly against
Jim Hall has gonads the size of pineapples.
His outrageous 1969 offering, the wedgy, door-stop, knee high, De Dion rear-ended 2H was a complete flop. It’s driver, John Surtees, thought Hall had been smoking wacky baccy at Woodstock rather than working with clean-cut Nixon supporters at GM’s Skunkworks to design a new car.
Ever the poker player, Hall doubled his bets and concepted a machine so advanced and fast it was banned after only four races.
The Phil Hill/Mike Spence winged Chaparral 2F Chev looking lonely on the Daytona banking in 1967, DNF (Getty)
Chaparral had been giving the rest of the racing world aerodynamics and aero-technology lessons for five years or so to that point.
By 1970 the aluminium monocoque chassis was passe, so too was the aluminium block 650bhp’ish Chev ZL1 V8, even Chaparral/GM’s semi-automatic three-speed transaxle was a bit ho-hum.
Legend has it the inspiration for the 2J was a child’s fan-mail drawing to Hall of a sports racer being sucked down to the road by giant fans extracting the air underneath.
Whether it was ‘Elroy Jetsons’ sketch, an extension of previous Chapparral/GM R&D work, or divine providence, GM’s Paul Von Valkenburgh and Charlie Simmons, and Chaparral’s Don Gates started modelling the possibilities on Chevy R&D’s Suspension Test Vehicle.
More of a test-rig than a car, it enabled them to play with roll-centres and stiffness, ride height, pitch axis, anti-dive/squat and lots of other stuff; this rig became the 2J test mule.
“Gates worked out a fan and skirt infill defence system while Don Cox, Ernie DeFusco and Joe Marasco engineered a chassis to match,” Doug Nye wrote.
(sportscardigest.com)(sportscardigest.com)
The resulting tricky bits were the slab-sided, fully-fenced bodywork and Rockwell JLO 247cc two-stroke 45bhp snowmobile engine which powered two rear fans nicked from an M-109 Howitzer Tank. That combination could move 9,650 cubic feet of air a minute @ 6,000rpm, creating negative pressure equal to 2,200 pounds of downforce. Unlike other racing cars, the downforce was independent of the speed of the car.
For three-quarters of its footprint the car was ‘attached’ to the ground via skirts made of General Electric’s new, trick, Lexan polycarbonate. The skirts moved up and down with the movement of the car via a system of cables, pulleys and machined arms that bolted to the suspension. On the smoother Can-Am venues the seal was good, with the fans on the car hunkered-down by two inches.
The net effect of all of this was that the car sucked itself to the road, thereby creating immense cornering power and traction.
Stewart on the Watkins Glen grid, Chris Ecomomaki in front looking for a mike (J Meredith Collection)Vic Elford togs-up at Riverside. The car in front is Peter Revson’s Carl Haas entered Lola T220 Chev, Revson is sitting on the pit wall to the right of the Lola’s rear. His performances in that car propelled him into a works-McLaren M8F Chev with which he won the 1971 Can-Am Cup – F1 followed (B Cahier-Getty)
During the 2J’s build Jim Hall was smart enough to give SCCA officialdom a look at the car to ensure it was kosher in the almost-anything-goes Group 7/Can-Am world. The crew-cut mob deemed it hunky-dory to race.
While the car was first tested at Rattlesnake Raceway in November 1969, the complex machine missed the June 14, 1970 Mosport season opener and the following Canadian round at St Jovite. But 2J-001 finally arrived aboard a modest ute (pick-up) at Watkins Glen in mid July.
It’s driver was reigning World Champion Jackie Stewart in a one-race deal supported by GM (weird given the Ford sponsored Cosworth engine which powered his F1 cars). JYS had plenty of sportscar experience, including Can-Am cars, but nothing prepared him for the 2J.
“The car’s traction, its ability to brake and go deeply into corners is something I’ve never experienced before in a car of this size and bulk,” he wrote in Faster! “Its adhesion is such that it seems able to take unorthodox lines through turns, and this, of course, is intriguing.”
Jackie Stewart during practice at Watkins Glen, and below, a wonderful race day panorama (LAT)(LAT)
Stewart, and Vic Elford, retained by Hall to drive the car for the balance of the series, experienced the same other worldly, steep learning curve – retraining the brain about what was possible – as Mario Andretti encountered with Peter Wright and Colin Chapman’s Lotus 78-79 ground-effect cars in 1977-1978.
In a practical sense, half the problem was keeping the auxiliary engine alive – remember it wasn’t designed for this application – in its new harsh environment with all the trackside detritus the fans sucked up from the bottom of the car and regurgitated out the back at speed. Not to forget the skirts and their support mechanisms. The engineering challenge of this lot was mega.
Stewart qualified the brave-new-world 2J third behind the dominant orthodoxy, Denny Hulme and Dan Gurney’s new Batmobile-Beautiful McLaren M8D Chevs. Jackie closed on Dan during the race before being forced to pit, then went out for another seven laps – 22 in all – he bagged fastest lap before braking problems ended his race.
2J-001 at rest in the Watkins Glen pitlane. Sole sponsor decal is for GE-Lexan. Porsche Salzburg 917 of either Vic Elford or Dickie Attwood behind (LAT)Stewart blasts past Attwood’s third placed Porsche 917. While Hulme’s McLaren M8D Chev won at Watkins Glen, the next six placings were taken by Group 5 enduro cars, not the Group 7 cars for which the race was run. Said Porsche 917 and Ferrari 512S’ had already done the Watkins Glen 6-Hours the day before, most without an engine change between the two races. The JW 917 of Pedro Rodriguez/Leo Kinnunen won (unattributed)
Context is everything. The Glen’s Can-Am round was always topped up by Group 5-6 World Endurance Championship cars which were also in town for the Watkins Glen 6-Hour.
The dominant 1970-71 endurance racer was the swoopy-rounded, spaceframe, 4.5-4.9-litre flat-12 engined Porsche 917. Alongside the 917 the 2J looked like a Sci-Fi film prop!
The Texans missed the next three rounds at Edmonton, Mid Ohio and Road America to further develop the car before rejoining the circus at Road Atlanta in mid-September.
Elford recalled his impressions of the car to MotorSport, “Drving the car was just out of this world. The start-up procedure was a bit like an aeroplane I suppose, you didn’t just jump into first gear and drive away.”
“I put my left foot hard on the brake to make sure it didn’t go anywhere, then fire-up the little engine which immediately started to drive the two monster fans at the back, sucking up the air underneath. When I did this the car would literally go: ‘Shhhp!’ and lower itself down to the ground by about two and a half inches.”
Such was the suction of the turbines, the 2J could tootle off on its own at up to 30mph if the brakes weren’t applied.
At Road Atlanta Vic popped it on pole and finished sixth after ignition problems with the snowmobile engine.
“You get to the stage of thinking it’s just not possible to go around any corner at that speed, and adapting to it mentally is the most difficult approach because no other car has ever gone around a corner as fast as this one,” Elford recalled.
“Another great thing about the suction is that it doesn’t allow the cars’s handling characteristics to change as you go through a corner. Whichever way it’s set it remains that way at all times, whether its a fast corner or a slow swerve – it remains absolutely constant.”
Come race day Elford was always impacted by the three speed semi-auto transaxle, rather than the four of the LG600 Hewland equipped competition, that wasn’t the problem at Road Atlanta though, it was the subsidiary engine.
Laguna Seca followed a month later. There, Elford was the only car to go under a minute, a smidge less than two seconds quicker than Denny Hulme, despite never seeing the place before…
“I went around Laguna in 59 seconds and it was about five years before the next car managed to go under a minute, and that was an Indycar!”
He didn’t get to start from pole as the Chevy popped a-leg-out-of-bed in the warm-up early in the day, and there simply wasn’t the time for the Midland boys to pop in a new engine. The complexity of an engine change involved pulling much of the car apart and reassembly, a days work. It was an immense bummer for the Californian crowd.
Beautiful Laguna Seca profile shot of Vic Elford shows the unmistakable slab-sided lines of the car and operation of the skirts which appear to be riding the bitumen pretty well (unattributed)Imagine being showered by fast moving trackside shrapnel at 170mph, Dyson have nothing on this vacuum-cleaner! Elford in the Road Atlanta pitlane
The final Can-Am round was at Riverside a fortnight later. There, Elford was again well clear of Hulme in qualifying, this time the gap was a little over two seconds, these are huge margins folks.
“At one point we came into Turn 9 with Denny Hulme just in front of me. I was right up against the wall and I probably didn’t even change gear. I drove all the way around the outside of Denny in third gear. He went straight off, went into the pits and took his helmet off, sat on the pit wall and sulked for the next half hour!”
This time the Rockwell engine didn’t play ball, breaking its crank. The team managed to patch it up and take the start but it inevitably failed on lap two.
And that was it, the howls of protest were loud and long.
Not that there was any way known the 2J didn’t bristle with illegal ‘moveable aerodynamic devices’! No way can the SCCA officials who saw the car pre-season could have thought it otherwise, but – bless-em – they probably thought “Let ‘em run, the crowds will be huge and we’ll see what happens from there.”
In the process of banning it, the SCCA ripped the soul out of Can-Am in that Hall and his boys walked away.
Can-Am’s attraction was its anything goes nature which invited innovation. Anything goes was great, unless, it seems, it threatened the dominant orthodoxy. To me there was Chaparral-Can-Am and Post-Chaparral-Can-Am and the former was vastly better than the latter, with all due respect to Porsche and Shadow.
Elford in front of one of the Papaya-M8D-Terrors at Laguna Seca. Hay bales still very much around in 1970 (H Thomas/Getty)Brian Redman, Jim Hall, the Chaparral crew and their Lola T330/332 Chevs were the dominant US F5000 force from 1974-76. Here the duo are in the Elkhart Lake pits in 1974, Lola T332C Chev
Still, Hall kept his core team together running Lolas in the US F5000 and single-seat Can-Am championships, then had the joy of watching Lotus carry the ground effect torch forward, not that Chapman ever gave any credit his way, our Col never did that to anyone.
Hall then returned with the John Barnard designed ground effect Chaparral 2K Cosworth which won the CART championship and the Indy 500 in 1980 with Johnny Rutherford at the wheel.
Lone Star JR on the way to a win at Indy in 1980, Chaparral 2K Cosworth (IMS)
That Automobile Year 18 I prattled on about at the start of this masterpiece was hugely influential in stimulating my interest in cars and racing. Six of my Top Ten cars I first saw in that tome; Ferrari 312B, Lotus 72 Ford, Ferrari 512S, McLaren M8D Chev, Ferrari Dino 246GT and of course the Chaparral 2J. The Ferraris and McLaren are all about sex-on-wheels, the 72 and 2J are a tad more cerebral.
This article made me consider what the most influential racing car in my lifetime is? Its ‘gotta be a toss-up between the Lotus 25 Climax and 2J.
All monocoque racing cars are related to the 25, the first modern monocoque. The aerodynamics of racing cars since the Lotus 78 are related to the 2J. Let’s toss the coin as to which is the more influential, let the debate begin!
PS…
I ‘spose you think I’ve forgotten John and Charlie Cooper, but they were doing their mid-engined thing way before I was born, so, I’ve dodged that debate at least. In any event, Auto Union’s mid-engined missiles won GPs pre-war.
May 1967Thinkin, always thinkin. Jim Hall at Riverside in 1966 (B D’Olivo-Getty)
Credits…
MotorSport Images, sportscardigest.com, Indy Motor Speedway, Getty Images, J Meredith Collection, Harry Hurst, Sports Illustrated, Sportscar Digest, MotorSport November 2020 article by James Elson
Tailpieces…
“Aw come on Jim, it’s years since you raced in F1, time to return and give things a bit of a shake up.”
Jim Hall and Jackie Stewart pre-race at Watkins Glen. “Just make sure you have your left foot on the brake when we fire it up or you’ll mow down half the paddock!”
Note the fan-covers missing at Watkins Glen but present in subsequent races.
Jim Hall’s British Racing Partnership Lotus 24 BRM during the 1963 Dutch GP at Zandvoort, eighth in the race won by Jim Clark’s epochal Lotus 25 Climax. Carel de Beaufort’s ninth placed Porsche 718 in the distance (MotorSport)
I love these nudie-rudie shots, so many of a car’s secrets are revealed by photographs like this.
Jim Culp caught one of the Ferrari 312Bs raced by Jacky Ickx and Clay Regazzoni at Hockenheim over the August 2, 1970 German Grand Prix weekend coming off its transporter.
Key elements of Mauro Forghieri’s design on display are the low, wide 3-litre, fuel injected flat-12 (180 degree V12 if you prefer) engine and far-back weight distribution; the two oil tanks and related dry sump pump drives, battery, and twin, beautifully ducted oil coolers/radiators.
Ickx started the race from pole, with Regga third but Jochen Rindt’s Lotus 72 Ford prevailed over Ickx by a little less than a second, after a great long dice, with Regazzoni out with engine failure.
In a year of great sadness (deaths of Bruce McLaren at Goodwood and Piers Courage at Zandvoort) it was Jochen Rindt’s last win, and the start of a great run home for Ferrari.
Sheer economy of the design shown in this Hockenheim refuelling shot of Regga’s car (R Schlegelmilch)Regazzoni from Rindt and Ickx early in the German GP (MotorSport)
Ickx won at the Osterreichring a fortnight later, and Regazzoni at Monza after Rindt’s tragic practice accident. Ickx won again at Mosport and Mexico City but Emerson Fittipaldi’s first GP win for Lotus at Watkins Glen helped ensure Rindt won the drivers title, and Lotus the manufacturers championship. Karma prevailed in an unusual year in which race wins were spread among drivers; Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart, Pedro Rodriguez, Regazzoni, Ickx, Fittipaldi and Rindt.
Ferrari had a torrid time throughout 1968-69. The Ford Cosworth DFV was dominant and used by many of the front-runners. Team-leader, Chris Amon was in winning positions at least four times over this period only to be continually let down – Ickx’ ’68 French GP win duly noted.
Ickx at Monaco in May. Note the radiator exit duct and inboard rocker front suspension (MotorSport)The Lotus 72 made everything with a front radiator – the rest of the grid – look old, but the 312B was a very effective cohesive marriage of bespoke engine and chassis. Fast and reliable too (G Piola)Chris Amon testing at Modena in late 1969. This shot shows the chassis ‘pontoon’ to which the engine mounts behind the top radius rod. Wonderfully neat and structurally rigid is the way the high roll bar braces to the rear of the pontoon, and forms the wing mount, and fire extinguisher mount!
Forghieri placed a new, clean sheet of drafting paper on his drawing board in 1969, the first such F1 occasion since he led the design of gorgeous, but never fully developed 1964-65 1.5-litre 1512 flat-12.
He again chose a flat-12 given its potential power output, low centre of gravity and lesser weight than the V12 it replaced. He made the engine a stressed member of the chassis, as was the engine on the 1512 – following the lead provided by Vittorio Jano’s Lancia D50 design – but this time the engine attached both to the rear bulkhead behind the driver, and underneath a ‘boom or pontoon’ chassis extension rearwards behind the drivers shoulders. The 1512 bolted to the rear bulkhead.
The Tipo 015 flat-12 – designed by Forghieri, Franco Rocchi and Giancarlo Bussi – was a great engine which powered the Scuderia’s Grand Prix cars from 1970 to 1980 (two drivers titles for Niki Lauda, and one for Jody Scheckter), and won them a World Endurance Championship when fitted in suitably detuned form to 312PB chassis in 1972.
There were a few teething problems early on however. To minimise friction losses and release a few more horses, the engine had only four main bearings, two plain shell bearings in the middle, and ball-bearing races at each end of the crank. With minimal support, crankshaft breakages were so much of a problem that Chris Amon cried “Enough!” and left the team, not even completing the 1969 GP season.
Ignazio Giunti at Spa during his first championship GP. He was fourth in the Belgian GP won by Pedro Rodriguez’ BRM P153 after an epic race-long dice with Amon’s March 701 Ford (R Schlegelmilch)Ickx at Watkins Glen, he started from pole but pitted with a broken fuel line. In a tiger of a drive he went from 12th to fourth, Fittipaldi took his maiden GP win aboard a Lotus 72 Ford. Doesn’t the 312B look long from this angle? You can see the rearward weight bias and relatively clean air in which the rear wing operates thanks to the low engine (MotorSport)
A tilting dyno bed at Maranello enabled cornering oil surge to be monitored, the crank torsional vibration problem was fixed by adding a Pirelli cushion-coupling between the crankshaft and the flywheel.
Before too long the gear driven, twin-cam, four valve, Lucas injected engine produced a reliable 460bhp @ 11,500rpm, which rose over time to about 510bhp @ 12,000rpm.
While Chris made the works March 701 Ford sing in 1970, his solo Silverstone International Trophy win was no compensation for the four wins Ferrari produced with a car he put his heart and soul into at Modena in early testing…
Regazzoni is wedged between one of the BRMs and Stewart’s wingless March 701 Ford early in the Italian GP (R Schlegelmilch)Tifosi Monza 1970, Things Go Better With…(R Schlegelmilch)
While the Italian Grand Prix that year (above) was a terrible weekend, Ferrari had a home win, the tifosi went berserk and Mr Ferrari attended practice as he traditionally did.
Ickx started from pole, Regga was Q3 and Giunti Q5. Regazzoni was the only one of the three to finish, in the right spot too. Ignazio was out with fuel system woes after completing 14 laps, and Jacky with clutch troubles after 25 laps.
Regga won from Jackie Stewart’s March 701 Ford and Jean-Pierre Beltoise’ Matra MS120. Points of GP trivia are that it was the last time a GP was won by a driver wearing an open face helmet, and the last time the first three finishers used different tyre brands; Firestone, Dunlop and Goodyear in first to third respectively.
“The race is in the bag Commendatore”. “Yeah-yeah you told me that last year Mauro” (R Schlegelmilch)Ickx heads out to set pole at Monza (R Schlegelmilch)
Credits…
Jim Culp, MotorSport Images, Rainer Schlegelmilch, ‘The History of The Grand Prix Car’ Doug Nye, Giorgio Piola
Tailpiece…
(MotorSport)
Clay Regazzoni, 312B from Jackie Stewart’s March 701 Ford and Jean-Pierre Beltoise’ Matra MS120 at Druids Hill early in the 1970 British Grand Prix.
Jochen Rindt was well beaten by Jack Brabham that afternoon but a crewman’s fuel mixture switch mistake gifted Jochen the win in an amazing last lap change of fortune. Last lap drama happened at Monaco too, but that day the mistake was Jack’s due to the pressure Jochen applied.
The sight of an unlimited Top Fuel dragster doing a fast pass is not a sound, sight or sensation ever forgotten. It’s truly one of the most awe inspiring of motor racing experiences.
The shot above is at Dallas International Speedway on October 27, 1969, happy to take advice on the who/chassis/engine?
(Getty Images)
I was flicking through Getty Images’ drag racing collection and who should be smiling at me (top row in the middle) at Indianapolis on September 3, 1969 but 27 year-old Exekiel ‘Danny’ Ongais.
Danny On-the-Gas caught my eye in the day with his exceptional brio, perhaps he had a dash too much of it?
Ongais became a rather handy, versatile racer on speedways and the circuits, right up to Grand Prix racing after leaving the ‘strips behind. In addition, the Flying Hawaiian starred in sportscars and started at Indy 11 times from 1977 to 1996, his best finish was fourth place aboard an Interscope Racing Parnelli VP6B Cosworth in 1979.
Kahului (Maui) born Ongais started racing BSA’s as a teenager, returning from a three year stint as a paratrooper with the US Army to win the Hawaiian state motorcycle championship in 1960.
With limited racing opportunities in Hawaii, he shifted to the mainland and started working for Dragmaster, a successful builder of drag-car chassis and cars in Carlsbad, California.
Soon he was racing cars owned by others; Jim Nelson (Dragmaster), the Beaver brothers and Mickey Thompson. He then branched out on his own, winning American Hot Rod Association Gas titles in 1963-64, then the National Hot Rod Association AA Dragster championship in 1965.
A switch to Funny Cars yielded two wins in a Mickey Thompson owned, Pat Foster built Mustang powered by an SOHC Ford V8 in 1969. In addition, the Ongais/Thompson duo set 295 national and international records on the Bonneville Salt Flats that year in Mustang Mach 1’s; one 302 and two NASCAR style 427 V8 machines.
After leaving Thompson he raced the ‘Big John’ Mazmanian/Vels Parnelli Mustang Funny Car and ‘Flying Doorstop’ Top Fueller, setting the sport’s first over 240mph pass in the latter at Ontario in 1972 at 243.24mph.
Ongais, winged slingshot Top Fueller at the Winternationals in 1972 (nhra.com)Ted Field and Danny Ongais, what a combination! Ongais raced cars for Ted in F5000, F1, IndyCar and endurance racing (Getty Images)Ongais and Mickey Thompson with Mustang Funny Car in 1969 (Getty Images)
All those years before, his European stint in the Army stimulated his interest in road racing, he attracted the attention of entertainment mogul Ted Field (Interscope) at the end of 1974.
Ongais contested the 1975 US F5000 championship, finishing fifth in the title chase the following year aboard an Interscope Lola T332C Chev behind Brian Redman, Al Unser Snr, Jackie Oliver and Alan Jones, but in front of seasoned road racers and F5000 champions Vern Schuppan, Warwick Brown, Teddy Pilette and Peter Gethin.
Interscope put a toe in the USAC championship that year too, with Ongais taking his first win at Michigan in 1977 aboard a Parnelli VPJ-6B Cosworth. Five more victories followed aboard his Parnelli VPJ-6B in 1978 but mechanical dramas and inconsistency left him eighth in the points standings. If his speed was ever in doubt – it wasn’t – he put his Parnelli VPJ-6C Cosworth in between the Penske PC6 Cosworth DFX’s of Tom Sneva and Rick Mears on the Indy front row.
Ongais contested the two North American GP races aboard a Penske PC4 Ford in 1977 placing seventh from Q22 in the Canadian GP at Mosport, at Watkins Glen he retired from Q26.
In 1978 he raced a Team Tissot Ensign N177 Ford in Argentina and Brazil, retiring in both races from Q21 and Q23. Later in the season he lined up in a Shadow DN9A Ford at Long Beach and Zandvoort but failed to pre-qualify in both events.
Ongais raced plenty of sportscars including Porsche 934, 935 and 962, Lola T600 and March 88S. In addition to many national victories, together with Field and Hurley Haywood, he won the 1979 Daytona 24 Hours racing a Porsche 935.
Ongais ahead of another Lola T332C Chev during 1976 – circuit folks? (unattributed)At Brands Hatch for the Indy Trophy in October 1978. Ninth in the Parnelli VPJ-6B Cosworth, Rick Mears won in a Penske PC6 Cosworth
Ongais raced in CART from 1979. “His debut at Phoenix, where he qualified fourth and led the race before being derailed by an engine failure set the tone for the next couple of years: a story of blazing speed, but bad luck or other circumstances conspiring against him fully capitalizing on it.” Vintage MotorSport wrote.
“But all that took a back seat when he suffered a massive accident in the 1981 Indy 500. He’d pitted as the leader on lap 63, only to lose more than 40s to a catastrophically slow pitstop. Upon rejoining, he made a late pass on a slower car at Turn 3, lost the rear, overcorrected and pounded the barriers nearly head on. He was rushed to hospital in a critical condition, and spent the rest of the season on the sidelines recovering from factures to both legs, a broken arm, and a six-inch tear to his diaphragm.”
Ongais, Jacarepagua Rio, Brazilian GP 1978. Ensign N177 Ford, DNF brakes, race won by Reutemann’s Ferrari 312T2 (MotorSport)Ongais before his final Indy 500 start in 1996. Lola T95/00 Menard V6. Seventh in the race won by Buddy Lazier’s Reynard 951 Ford XB (unattributed)
“Indeed, while he continued to produce decent results upon his return in 1983, his later years were defined almost as much by a handful of significant accidents – not all of which he was directly involved with.”
“He was very much at the center of the big one in 1985, when he was launched into a massive barrel roll down the backstretch at Michigan after running into the rear of Phil Krueger. Two years later, he crashed during practice for the Indianapolis 500 and sustained a concussion that forced him to miss the race.”
“Ongais’ final appearance at the 500 had its roots in far more tragic circumstances in 1996 when polesitter Scott Brayton was killed in a practice crash and team owner John Menard tapped Ongais as his replacement. Ongais, then 54 and making his first start at the Speedway in a decade, lined up at the rear of the field and finished a remarkable seventh. He made one final attempt to qualify with Team Pelfrey two years later, but was bumped.”
The publicity-shy Ongais spent his later years surrounded by family in southern California. He was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2000 and remains the only driver to score professional wins in drag racing, Indycars and sportscars.
He died, aged 79 on February 26, 2022.
In the cockpit of a Porsche 935 at Daytona (unnattributed)
Credits…
Getty Images, Vintage Motorsport, nhra.com, Paul Kooyman, MotorSport Images
Tailpiece…
(unattributed)
Letting rip in the Shadow DN9A Ford on the streets of Long Beach in 1978.
Danny failed to pre-qualify but it was not for want of trying, here he seems keen to win the Patrick Depailler Most-Sideways-Longbeach-Cup!
The race was won by Carlos Reutemann’s Ferrari 312T3. Clay Regazzoni’s Shadow was the only one of three to finish, in 10th place from Q20. Hans Stuck’s car was Q23/DNS and Ongais Q29.
Calder Raceway underway in 1961, Pat Hawthorn’s Holden and Jim Houlahan’s Chev on site (Hawthorn Family
Pat Hawthorn’s team turn the first sods of soil to create Calder Raceway, 30km west of Melbourne later in 1961…
I’ve always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with the place. On one hand it’s the first place I drove a racing car – an Elfin 620B Formula Ford at the Jane-Gardner Race Driving School in mid 1975 – but on the other I’ve always thought the flat, featureless hot n’ dusty or freezin’ and wet joint a bit of a shit-hole. Gimme Sandown, the Island, Winton, Eastern Creek, Wakefield or Mallala.
But it’s close to Melbourne, I’ve probably done more laps there than anywhere else despite it being closed forever. While the layout has always been simple (Thunderdome challenges duly noted) the challenge of doing a great time are there given ya have so few corners to work with.
I thought Keilor farmer Jim Pascoe built it, then Bob Jane bought it in the early seventies, several years after Pascoe died. The Jane Estate still owns it, how wrong about the early days I was though.
Pat Hawthorn aboard his ex-works/Davison Aston Martin DBR4/250 3-litre F1/F Libre car at his servo in Clayton, on the corner of Thomas and Centre Roads. While there wouldn’t have been another Aston Martin resident in that part of the world, for some time, new AMs were retailed from a showroom in Springvale Road, Springvale – right ‘on’ the railway line near Sandown. A most unlikely place as well, the good residents of Toorak struggle to go further east than Glenferrie Road let alone Burke Road (Hawthorn) The Spanos sportscar is an Elfin Streamliner Coupe, a car George owned all of his life, and still retained by his family I think 1962 meeting at Calder, advice welcome on whom is whom (O Campion)
It turns out that racer/garage proprietor Pat Hawthorn is the man we should all thank for the original entrepreneurship.
For some years Pat had a servo in Clayton. One of his regular customers, Jim Houlahan had land on the Calder Highway, he wondered if Pat would be interested in helping develop it for use as a wreckers yard.
Pat thought the location was ideal for a race track, a dream he had for a while. Soon a company was incorporated with funds provided by Melbourne bookie (bookmaker) John Corry and Jim Pascoe. His business interests spanned several fields including Drive-In-Theatres (very much a sixties and seventies thing) and race-horse training.
A simple layout to Pat’s design provided the track layout, a fundamental element of which was that spectators be able to see most of the action.
Australia had a shortage of racetracks from the beginning of time. With a global economy that was booming, a strongly growing Australian population thanks to post-war immigration, and plenty of young men with money in their pockets resulted in an epidemic of circuit construction. Within a short space of time circuits popped up across the country; Lakeside, Warwick Farm, Catalina Park, Oran Park, Hume Weir, Winton, Sandown, Calder and Mallala were all built over a span of four or so years.
I don’t propose to write the history of Calder, but rather to put on-the-record some wonderful pages of the late Pat Hawthorn’s scrap-book posted on Bob Williamson’s Australian Motor Racing Photographs Facebook page.
While Pat Hawthorn died some years ago, we have his son Russell Hawthorn to thank for sharing these invaluable records for preservation. Click here for a piece on the Aston Martin DBR4 Grand Prix cars, including Pat Hawthorn’s; Lex’ Aston Martin DBR4/250s… | primotipo…
Back Straight, one turns right at the end (Hawthorn)
As the newspaper articles tell us, the star of the first meeting held on Sunday 14 January, 1962 – the public were invited to the rehearsal on 6 January (a freebie I wonder?) – was Bib Stillwell who had wins in both his Cooper T53 Climax Formula Libre single-seater and Cooper Monaco sportscar.
A quick glance at the results shows many of the names-of-the-day supported the opening meeting including Stan Jones, Jon Leighton, Jack Hunnam, Brian Sampson, Ian McDonald, Harry Forde, Norm Beechey, Bill and Bob Jane, John Ampt, John Roxburgh and Bob Page.
Pat Hawthorn receiving a trophy at Calder from the then Victorian Government Minster for Sport. The man in the suit behind the microphone is Jim Pascoe- both part-owners and directors at the time, date uncertain (Hawthorn Family)
Before too long the ownership of the business changed from the syndicate of businessman to Jim Pascoe solo. While Warwick Farm and Sandown were the blue-blood Tasman Cup venues, shorter tracks like Oran Park and Calder also thrived. Calder held a round of the Australian Touring Car Championship for the first time in 1969, that was symbolic of the venue’s rise in the tracks-of-Oz pecking order.
Geoghegan, Moffat, Jane and Thomson (?) at Calder in late 1969
Peter Brock and 1970 Australian Rally Champion, Bob Watson during a 1970 Calder rallycross event. HDT LC Holden Torana GTR XU1 and works-Renault R10 Gordini (I Smith)
Look at that crowd! Bryan Thomson’s Chev Camaro SS outside Allan Moffat’s immortal Trans Am Mustang as they blast onto the main straight in 1970 (R Davies)
Kevin Bartlett’s Lola T300 Chev during one of the Repco Birthday meetings in 1972. ‘Grandstand dreaming’ as per text below (I Smith)
Later, when Bob Jane bought the place it was subjected to constant change, development and improvement.
I can remember going to a meeting as a teenager with my father in the early seventies. At one stage Bob was standing at the very top of the new, but not quite opened grandstand at the start of the main straight, he was staring into the distance, all alone and dreaming of what might be. Perhaps he had aspirations of the Thunderdome even then?
At various times the venue hosted many international rock concerts (I couldn’t think of a worse place to see a band) and became a wonderful rallycross track, you could see all of the action, such was the compact nature of the place.
For decades the place was the capital of drag racing in Victoria, if not Australia. To see a pair of Top-Fuel dragsters do five-second (or whatever it was) passes is indelibly etched in my mind, that evening is the only day of race spectating where I felt I ‘tasted’ the cars. It was such a visceral, tactile assault on all of ‘yer senses.
Alan Jones on the way to winning the 1980 AGP at Calder, Williams FW07 Ford (unattributed) Niki Lauda, Ralt RT4 Ford BDA (and below) during the 1984 AGP won by Roberto Moreno in another RT4 (C Jewell)
Recent drag racing action, advice as to chassis/drivers/date welcome (calderparkdragracing.com.au)
Whilst Calder never held an F1 AGP, as Bob hoped, the 1980 Formula Libre AGP at Calder, and the 1981 to 1984 Formula Pacific AGPs were important steps in the direction Adelaide eventually seized.
I always thought ‘If only Bob owned Phillip Island instead of Calder’ his great acts of promotion could have played out on a vastly more impressive stage, but hey let’s be thankful for a venue so close to home.
It must be fifteen years since I last had a gallop there, in the last VHRR’s Summer Test Days they ran annually. I’m a regular traveller up the Calder Highway, it’s sad to drive past that huge wasted resource and think of the clusterfuck of family and CAMS disputation dramas that stopped the joint dead in its tracks, pun intended.
Mind you, the tom-toms are rattling a little at the moment, it might not be all over, after-all…
‘Rockarena’ at Calder in November 1977. Fleetwood Mac headlined and were supported by Santana, Little River Band, Kevin Borich Express and Creation (jpjaudio.com.au)
Etcetera…
I love improvisation, it seems CAMS didn’t have a Track Licence form so they adapted a Competitor Licence and issued that to Pat and his partners – ‘Calder Motor Raceway Pty. Ltd’, that registered address is at Kew Junction, a drop kick from Bib Stillwells’ then Holden dealership.
Bob Jane in his period of ownership tried plenty of great ideas as a promoter, but a race between Pat Hawthorn’s Aston and a trotter is very much on the innovative side!
Credits…
Pat Hawthorn Collection via Russell Hawthorn, Chris Jewell, Ian Smith, Ollie Campion, Robert Davies, jpjaudio.com.au, calderparkdragracing.com.au
What a magic Pau Grand Prix vista on April 5, 1964.
Jim Clark’s one-litre Formula 2 Lotus 32 Cosworth SCA leads Peter Arundell’s F3 Lotus 27 Ford Cosworth MAE during the 80 lap, 220km race held around the streets of the Pyrenees-Atlantiques city in France’s southwest.
The yellow nose car in third is Richard Attwood’s Lola T54 SCA. Clark won from Attwood and Arundell in a stellar field which included Paul Hawkins, Tony Maggs, Frank Gardner, Jean-Pierre Beltoise, Maurice Trintignant and Denny Hulme.
Jim Clark right up Paul Hawkins’ clacker during the 1964 GP. Hawkeye was seventh aboard John Willment’s F3 Alexis Mk4 Ford Cosworth MAE. There were nine or ten Ford Cosworth MAE, and Renault Gordini engined F3 cars in the F2 race, doubtless to keep numbers up in the first year of the new 1-litre F3 and F2 (LAT) Dickie Attwood during the ’64 F2 race, Midland Racing Partnership Lola T54 Cosworth SCA. Past Saint Martin Church perhaps, help please Frenchies? (LAT)
It amused me, flicking through some Pau GP photographs that numbers two and four also loomed large the year before, in 1963, when the F1 Lotus 25 Climax V8s of Clark and #4 Trevor Taylor (below) finished one-two from Heinz Schiller’s Porsche 718.
(LAT)
The 1930 French Grand Prix was held on a triangular 15.8km road circuit at Pau. It was won by Philippe Etancelin’s Bugatti T35C, this toe-in-the-water for the town led to the Pau GP’s inauguration as an annual event in 1933.
Marcel Lehoux’ Bugatti T51 won that snowy February race from Guy Moll’s similar car.
The 1930 grid including #10 Lehoux Bug T35B, #44 the winning Etancelin Bug T35C, the #28 or 38 Bugatti of De Maleplane or De L’espee, while towards the top is the #42 Daniel T35B. 25 cars started this race (unattributed)
Happily, the race is still held around the 2.769km Circuit de Pau de Ville.
The Pau GP is up-there in a list of global continuous events. Down the decades it’s been held for GP cars until 1963. It then morphed thru F2 (1964-1984), F3000 (1985-1998), F3 (1999-2006), World Touring Car Championship cars – an unfortunate aberration – (2007-2009) then back to F3 (2012-2012), Formula Renault (2013), then F3 again (2014-2019) until this year (2022) when Vladislav Lomko, a Russian (oh dear, how very passé and politically incorrect) won the May race aboard a Dallara 320 Euroformula (F3 variant) machine.
Far-canal I HATE all the global one-make shit, it’s so fuggin boring. I don’t want to sound like a silly old tugger, but it is boring isn’t it, the lack of variety? And don’t give me the economics lesson, I just don’t give a shit…
Tazio Nuvolari on the way to victory at Pau in February 1935, he is closely followed by Rene Dreyfus, both driving Scuderia Ferrari Alfa Romeo Tipo P3s (unattributed)Alberto Ascari in the fabulous Ferrari 375 during the ‘51 Pau GP, DNF transmission from Q2. His teammate, Gigi Villoresi, won from pole in another 375. Ascari won in 1952-53 aboard Ferrari 500s (unattributed)
The list of drivers who have won around the demanding track includes many of the gods; Tazio Nuvolari, Jackie Stewart and Lewis Hamilton won once, while JM Fangio, Alberto Ascari and Jack Brabham were victorious twice, Jochen Rindt won thrice during his King of F2 reign, with Jim Clark a four-time winner.
This wonderful poster for the 1963 event shows 1962 first lap action. Jo Bonnier’s Porsche 718 leads Ricardo Rodriguez’ Ferrari 156 and Jim Clark’s Lotus 24 Climax, #8 is Lorenzo Bandini’s 156. Maurice Trintignant’s Lotus 18/21 Climax won from Rodriguez, and Jack Lewis’ BRM P48/57
Throughout motor racing history France has held god knows how many car races on road circuits. It would be a great idea to tour France and tick a few off, for me Pau and Clermont Ferrand are top of the list. Doubtless that’s a function of my age, ten years older perhaps the top-two would be Reims and Rouen…
Jean-Pierre Jabouille aboard his self constructed Elf 2J (nee Jabouille 2J) Renault 2-litre F2 car, from Jacques Laffitte, Chevron B35 BMW during the height of the F2 era in 1976. First to fourth were Frenchmen; Rene Arnoux, Martini Mk19 Renault, Laffitte, Jabouille and Jean-Pierre Jarier, Chevron B35 BMW (DPPI)
The 2-litre F2 and F3000 period of incredibly quick, spectacular racing cars stretched from 1972-1998, any of you who saw the race during that period had a special treat.
Every winner of the Pau classic in that period raced in F1 with the exception of Jorg Muller, who was a test driver for Arrows, Sauber and Williams but never quite got a race-steer.
Mike Thackwell’s Ralt RH6/81 Honda during the June 1981 race won by his teammate, Geoff Lees, Thackwell was sixth (MotorSport)
Red Bull Supremo, Christian Horner raced at elite level including F3000. He is shown below at Pau in 1997 aboard his Lola T96/50 Zyrtec-Judd leading Marcus Friesacher.
It was after following Juan Pablo Montoya for a few laps the following year that Horner realised his future was better devoted to racing outside the cockpit! Still, his management capabilities are enhanced by the knowledge of exactly what his drivers are dealing with.
(MotorSport)Pau modern era F3 race (unattributed)
Etcetera: 1952 Pau GP…
A couple of days after publication, Australian enthusiast/restorer/vintagent Chester McKaige got in touch and provided these wonderful colour images taken during the 1952 race by his father, George McKaige.
George was doing what we Colonials have always done, the Grand European Tour enroute to the UK. There he worked for the de Havilland Aircraft Company for a couple of years, on his weekends and holidays he attended many British and European racing events taking along his trusty camera.
Twenty years ago Chester printed two volumes of George’s photography in Europe and Australia, my copies of ‘Beyond The Lens’ are among my favourites of that golden-age.
Alberto Ascari in typical race attire, and Ferrari 500 in 1952. Note the stub exhausts fitted at this stage (G McKaige)Toulo de Graffenried, Plate Maserati 4CLT-48, sixth and final car classified, Pau 1952 (G McKaige)
The XIII Grand Prix de Pau – also the first round of the Grands Prix de France F2 Championship – was won convincingly from pole by Alberto Ascari in a Ferrari 500, chassis #0003 it seems, not #0005, the car in which he won so many races in 1952-53 before passing into the hands of Australians Tony Gaze and Lex Davison.
Sharing the front row with him were Gigi Villoresi’s similar works car, and Lance Macklin’s HWM Alta. Second and third placings in the three hour, 280km race were Louis Rosier’s Ferrari 500 and Jean Behra Simca Gordini T11.
By that early stage of the season Ascari had also won the GP di Siracusa. In a year of complete dominance he was also victorious in the GP de Marseille, a heat of the GP di Monza, the GP de Comminges, the GP de la Baule plus the championship Grands’ Prix of Belgium, France, Britain, Germany, Holland and Italy; not to forget the drivers World Championship!
Lance Macklin, HWM Alta, running at the end but unclassified, Pau 1952 (G McKaige)
Credits…
MotorSport Images, LAT, Jean Philippe Gionnet, DPPI, F2 Index, George and Chester McKaige
Tailpiece…
(JP Gionnet)
Lewis Hamilton pinging his F3 Dallara F305 Mercedes through the Esses in May 2005.
He had the perfect weekend, two poles, wins and fastest laps early in the season on the way to winning the F3 Euro Series with victories in 15 of the 20 races – and F1 beyond.
Lake Como view from the Mandello del Lario ferry terminal (M Bisset)
My recent European Safari included a trip to the Moto Guzzi Museum, a marque about which I knew very little. This piece is not an exhaustive history of the century old company but rather a skim across the top of the waves of its long, fascinating competition and corporate past.
The Italian paradise of Lake Como has been a sought after holiday location since Roman times.
It seems the most unlikely place for motorcycle manufacture. But there, below the rugged Larian Triangle Mountains near the shores of the deep, glacial lake in Mandello del Lario, Moto Guzzi commenced operations in 1921.
A century later the company still operates from Via Emanuele Vittorio Parodi. These days it’s a subsidiary of Piaggio rather than the Societa Anonima (a type of limited company the Italian Government replaced by Societa per azioni – S.p.a in 1942) Moto Guzzi shipowners Giorgio and Emanuele Parodi, Giorgio’s cousin Angelo, Gaetano Belviglieri, another Parodi family member, and Carlo Guzzi incorporated in Genoa on March 15, 1921.
(M Bisset)(unattributed)
Giorgio Parodi (1897-1955), Giovanni Ravelli (1887-1918) and Carlo Guzzi (1889-1964) concepted the business while serving together in the Corpo Aeronautico Militaire (Italian Air Corp) at the Miraglio Squadron near Venice during World War 1
Parodi, son of the wealthy Genovese ship-owner Emanuele Vittorio Parodi, and Ravelli, already a motorcycle racer, were pilots, Guzzi was their mechanic.
In essence Parodi provided the capital and ongoing management and entrepreneurial skill, Ravelli was to promote the venture, with Guzzi bringing mechanical and engineering skills. Then Ravelli died days after the war’s end in an aircraft crash at San Nicoletto naval base due to the engine failure of his Nieuport 11. He is commemorated by the eagle’s wings that form the Moto Guzzi brandmark.
Carlo Guzzi, Stanley Woods and Giorgio Parodi after the 1935 IOM Junior TT victory (Moto Guzzi)Stanley Woods again, 1935 IOM victor in both the Senior 500 (here) and Lightweight 250 TTs (shot above) aboard Moto Guzzis (Moto Guzzi)Statue of Carlo Guzzi in Mandello del Lario (I Gordon)
Carlo Guzzi was born into a wealthy Milanese family, they had a weekender at Mandello del Lario. Guzzi loved the area and convinced his backers to locate the business there.
He immediately set to work; his first engine design was a horizontal single that dominated the first 45 years of the company’s history in various forms.
The business’ earliest bikes were branded G.P. – Guzzi-Parodi – seventeen, all painted green were made in the first year. The machines were soon called Moto Guzzi, the Parodi’s wanted to avoid confusion about their focus on their core shipping business.
Carlo Guzzi received royalties for each motorcycle produced, initially he wasn’t a shareholder of the company which bore his name until later. In 1946 Moto Guzzi was incorporated as Moto Guzzi S.p.a. with Parodi as its chairman and Guzzi a shareholder.
The nascent marque raced their products to improve their quality and promote the brand, the first victory was taken by Gino Finzi aboard a G.P.500 at the September 1921 Targa Florio.
Further wins followed at the Circuito Del Pave, Treviso (M Cavedini), and in the Coppa Ravelli 1000km at Brescia (C Marazzani/M Cavedini) in 1922.
From early in its history the company offered generous benefits to employees to attract them to the area and retain them. These included subsidised housing, a medical centre, library, canteens and a rowing club. So good was the factory-eight that they represented Italy in the London 1948 Olympics, winning gold medals!
The first G.P (Guzzi Parodi) – note the name on the fuel tank – prototype was built in 1919 with the assistance of Giorgio Ripamonti, Guzzi’s pre-war employer. It’s very little different from the first production bikes – see next photo but one (Moto Guzzi)Carlo Guzzi’s office is part of the museum display (M Bisset)The first production G.P. 500 aka Moto Guzzi 500 (Moto Guzzi)
Carlo’s brother, Giuseppe ‘Naco’ Guzzi, added significant polish to the brand when he rode a GT Norge on a 6400km 1928 Arctic Circle raid to test the first motorcycle rear swingarm suspension; Guzzi is a company not lacking innovation throughout its long life.
Motorcycle travel was limited by the lack of effective (read comfortable) rear suspension. The Guzzi brothers’ solution was an elastic frame using a sheet-steel box enclosing four springs, together with a swingarm in tubes and sheet metal.
After the successful four-week Arctic test the elastic frame rear suspension was introduced on Guzzi production machines.
By 1929 the 300 square metre factory was producing over 2,500 motorcycles per year
Guido Mentasti won the 500cc class of the (first) European Motorcycle Championships in 1924, while Irish ace (29 GP wins) Stanley Woods won both Lightweight and Senior TTs on the Isle of Man in 1935.
Until the mid-1940s, the four-stroke, single-cylinder 500 engines were fitted with one overhead and one side valve. The side valve was deployed for induction and the overhead valve for the exhaust. One hairspring valve spring closed the exhaust valve. Moto Guzzi’s race team and privateer racers used bikes with varying higher performance overhead cam and multi-valve configurations.
The architect of many of these racers was Giulio Cesare Carcano, a Guzzi employee from 1936 to 1966, he was joined by another key engineer, Umberto Todero in 1939.
Post-war the company returned to racing, capturing the Italian title in 1946. Italian and European titles followed in 1947 (500cc/250cc/sidecars), and Italian, Swiss, French and European titles in 1948 (500cc/250cc) in a run of success which ended only with Moto Guzzi’s withdrawal from racing at the end of 1957.
Factory activity during the 1950s (Getty) Moto Guzzi Galleto among the mid-1950s mass of bikes in Italy (fondazionepirelli.org)
Commercially, the period after World War 2 was as difficult in Mandello del Lario as elsewhere in post-war Europe.
Guzzi’s solution to this challenging market was the production of inexpensive, lighter cycles. The 1946 Motoleggera 65cc lightweight became popular, while the 1950 four-stroke 175cc Galletto scooter was also a hit.
While modest machines by the standards of their racers, the bikes continued Guzzi’s commitment to innovation and quality. The step-through Galletto initially had a manual, foot-operated three-speed (160cc) configuration then later a four-speed (175cc) set-up. The engine grew to 192cc in 1954 with an electric starter added in 1961.
But competition was very tough, their fellow Italian manufacturers didn’t tolerate incursion by the Mandello del Lario boys into the scooter market as motorcycle sales fell.
Guzzi’s first large-wheeled scooter wasn’t a direct competitor to Piaggio (Vespa) and Lambretta, but Guzzi’s prototype small-wheeled scooter was. Lambretta retaliated with a prototype small V-twin motorcycle. The Mexican stand-off was resolved by Guzzi never producing a small-wheeled scooter and Lambretta never making the motorcycle…
Moto Guzzi wind tunnel in recent years (S Piotin)A duckbill-fairing being tested in the tunnel here, and raced by Enrico Lorenzetti in 1953 below (Moto Guzzi)In 1953 Lorenzetti was fourth and second in the World 250/350cc Championships (Moto Guzzi)
The commercial challenges were great, by the early 1950s Mandello del Lario’s largest employer had 1,500 employees on a factory site then greater than 24,000 square metres in size, it was a lot of mouths to feed.
Despite these difficulties, or more likely because of them, Guzzi built the world’s first motorcycle wind tunnel in 1950.
There, La Galleria del Vento tested prototypes in full size, allowing riders to assess conditions and optimise seat and body positions at racing speeds. It was a huge competitive advantage for race and production bikes alike.
In prototyping, the airstream around the motorcycle could be assessed allowing development of an envelope of still air around the rider, the reduction of frontal area, optimisation of air penetration and maximisation of fuel economy.
Naco Guzzi’s wind tunnel design was of the open-circuit Eiffel-type comprising three sections. Air is drawn into the Air Duct, with an aperture of 8.2 metres, airspeed increases as it is passed through smaller and smaller diameters reaching maximum wind speed in the Test Chamber with a diameter of 2.6 m, and finally is exhausted through the Outlet/Discharge duct containing the fan mechanism – a three-bladed variable speed propeller driven by a 310hp electric motor.
Dual Moto Guzzi mounted British World Champion (350cc 1953/4) Fergus Anderson’s account of the operation of the facility’s operation published in the May 1951 issue of The Motor Cycle explains in wonderful detail exactly how the wind tunnel was used to optimise the aerodynamics of Guzzi’s products in the Etcetera section below.
Duilio Agostini, Ken Kavanagh and Dickie Dale with a new 1955 Moto Guzzi 350 outside the wind tunnel (R Zehringer)Ken Kavanagh, Junior TT IOM 1954, DNF misfire on lap 3 having run up-front with teammate Fergus Anderson who also retired (TT Race Pics)Moto Guzzi 350 Monoalbero 1955. Four-valve DOHC single (M Bisset)
The competitiveness of their products enhanced, in the 1950s, Moto Guzzi, together with Gilera and Mondial led the Grand Prix world. Giulio Carcano’s durable, light 250cc and 350cc bikes dominated the middleweight classes, the factory won five consecutive 350cc World Championships from 1953-1957.
Two Australians raced for Moto Guzzi, Melburnians Ken Kavanagh from 1953-1956, and Keith Campbell in 1957.
Kavanagh raced in Europe from 1951 and graduated to Guzzi in 1953, winning three championship 350 GPs and one 500 GP. His 1952 Ulster GP 350 win was the first road-racing championship win by an Australian rider. His best championship result was fourth in the 1954 500cc title chase.
He raced a privately entered Maserati 250F in F1 races amongst his bike commitments in 1958-59 and lived in Bergamo, to which he shifted when racing for Guzzi, and lived for the rest of his long life (12/12/1923-26/11/2019)
Moto Guzzi 500 GP Otto cilindri V8 (M Bisset)Otto Cilindri drawing (Moto Guzzi)Moto Guzzi 500 V8 fitted with the dustbin fairing it usually raced (rideapart.com)
Giulio Carcano sought a 1955 knock-out 500cc blow with a V8 engined bike conceived together with Enrico Cantoni, Umberto Todero, Ken Kavanagh and Fergus Anderson just after the 1954 Monza Grand Prix.
The two-valve, water-cooled engine drawn by Carcano had a bore and stroke of 44.0 mm × 40.5 mm (1.73 in × 1.59 in), a 350cc version was developed as well but was unraced. Power was circa 80 bhp at 12,000 rpm, about 10-15bhp more than the MV Agusta and Gilera fours.
The bike and its engine were (and still are) extraordinary. Its top speed of 172 mph was reached thirty years before the speed was consistently achieved again in GP racing. But the Otto Cilindri was difficult to ride, complex, and expensive to build and maintain.
The machines suffered broken cranks, overheating and seizing – great dangers to those brave enough to race them. By 1957 there were two bikes available but the riders were unwilling to race them without further development so it was withdrawn.
Keith Campbell aboard the Guzzi V8 during 1957. Out of a ride after the withdrawal of Moto Guzzi from racing at the end of the year, he died racing a Manx Norton in the non-championship 500cc Cadours GP, near Toulouse, France in July 1958 (Moto Guzzi)Carcano’s 500cc V8 masterpiece (M Bisset)
Keith Campbell commenced racing in Europe in 1950 aged 18. He provided the last GP racing hurrah for Moto Guzzi when he won three of the five 350cc championship rounds – Assen, Spa and Ulster – to win the ’57 title.
Moto Guzzi, Gilera and Mondial then withdrew from racing at the end of the year citing rising costs and declining sales. Its competition CV included 3,329 race wins, eight World Riders Championships, six Constructors Championships and 11 Isle of Man TT victories.
By 1964 the company was in deep financial strife, the Japanese onslaught of the global motorcycle market was in full swing – the annual output of Kawasaki, the smallest of the Japanese Big-Four was greater than all of the Italian manufacturers combined – as generational change within the company was underway.
Emanuele Parodi and his son Giorgio had died and Carlo Guzzi was in retirement. Direction of the enterprise passed to Enrico Parodi, Giorgio’s brother. Carlo Guzzi died on November 3, 1964, in Mandello.
In February 1967, SEIMM (Società Esercizio Industrie Moto Meccaniche), a state-controlled receiver, assumed its debts and took over ownership of Moto Guzzi.
It wasn’t the first time this enlightened form of Italian insolvency laws saved an Italian icon, Alfa Romeo springs readily to mind; both companies were critical within their communities and as global Italian ambassadors, they were simply too big and important to fail.
SEIMM shifted the company’s focus to lightweight mopeds including the Dingo and Trotter, and the 125cc Stornello motorcycle.
It was also in this period that Guzzi developed the 90-degree V-twin engine, designed by Giulio Carcano, who left Guzzi shortly after the new regime took control. His engine, somewhat of a parting gift, became iconic of the make. Of all its engines none symbolises Moto Guzzi more than the air-cooled 90° V-Twin with its longitudinal crankshaft and transverse heads projecting prominently into the breeze either side of their handsome bikes.
The air-cooled, pushrod V-twin began life at 700cc and 45bhp and was designed to win an Italian government contract for a new police bike. The sturdy shaft-drive machine won, giving Moto Guzzi valuable ongoing, reliable cashflow.
The ‘67 Moto Guzzi V7 with the original Carcano engine has been continuously developed into the 1,200cc, 80bhp versions.
Lino Tonti redesigned the motor for the 1971 Moto Guzzi V7 Sport, this engine is the basis of the 750cc, 1,100cc and 1,200cc Guzzi motors. In 1971 Moto Guzzi sold 46,487 machines, an all-time high.
These Denver coppers look happy with their new mounts in July 1970. The order of 12 machines was a nice earner for Guzzi who sold a lotta police bikes…The Polizia Stradale out on their Guzzi 500s in some force on the occasion of the 102nd anniversary of the formation of their force; in the Parco di Milano 1954 (Moto Guzzi)Moto Guzzis have continued to contest production type events down the decades, here at the Le Mans 24-Hour in 1972 (unattributed)
Alessandro De Tomaso’s De Tomaso Industries Inc. purchased SEIMM and with it Moto Guzzi, Benelli and Maserati in 1973. Moto Guzzi returned to profitability despite only limited investment of funds in the company.
In November 1975 Guzzi released the 850 Le Mans at the Milan Show, the successful bike spun off four models from the Mark II to the 1990s Le Mans 1000 or Mark V.
In 1979, a small-block version of the air-cooled V-twin designed by engineer Lino Tonti – who joined the company in 1967 to replace Carcano – was introduced as the V35.
Radical when introduced, the design featured horizontally split crankcases and Heron heads which allowed more efficient mass production and cut the weight of the contemporary 850 T3 (249kg) to the (175 kg) of the V35. The power of the original V35 at 35bhp was competitive with engines of comparable displacement, but later, versions (V50, V65, V75) were outclassed by competitor’s water-cooled engines. The Breva and Nevada featured a descendant of Tonti’s V35 engine, the 750cc V-twin, rated at 48bhp.
The V-twin’s power was increased in the mid-1980s when four-valve versions of the small block series were made. The 650cc and the 750cc engines produced 60bhp and 65bhp respectively, these engines ceased production in the late 1980s.
#1 is a 1979 V7 750 record breaker, #43 a 1977 Bol D’or machine (M Bisset)Machine at right is a 2010 V12LM on display in Tokyo (Getty)Circa 1985 Le Mans 1000 (Moto Guzzi)
In 1988 Benelli and SEIMM merged to create Guzzi Benelli Moto (G.B.M. S.p.A).
By 1999, the lakeside complex included one, two, and three-story buildings of over 54,000 square metres. Between 1988-2000 the company built 3,300 and 6,275 (1999) machines a year.
Aprilia S.p.a acquired Moto Guzzi S.p.A. on April 14, 2000 for US$65 million. Their plans included Guzzi’s ongoing Mandello del Lario presence while sharing Aprilia’s technology, R&D capabilities and Balance Sheet.
Then Aprilia got into financial trouble due to troubled diversifications and new Italian laws requiring helmets, in addition, higher insurance premiums for young riders softened demand and profits. Cost cutting plans to move the operation to Monza were scuttled after mass protests from the Mandello del Lario workers, the local community and Guzzisti. Aprilia completed significant renovations to the wonderful Mandello Moto Guzzi factory costing US$45 million in 2004.
The production line closed for a short while in March 2004 until Piaggio & C S.p.a acquired Aprilia in December 30 2004. As part of Immsi S.p.A. Investments Moto Guzzi had/has access to capital which allowed the release of new bikes in quick succession including the retro-themed 2008 V7 Classic.
The current range includes the 850cc V7 Stone E5 and V7 Special E5 roadsters, the on/off road V85 TT E5 and special Guardia D’Onore Edition and V85 TT Adventure, and Travel E5 and retro V9 Bobber E5 and range topping V100 Mandello.
A century after Guzzi, Parodi and Ravelli made their plans the marque survives and thrives, Moto Guzzi currently employ 250 to 300 employees making over 10,000 bikes a year.
Moto Guzzi V7 Stone release at Lecco, Lake Como in March 2012. This bike was an evolution of the 2007 V7, based on the 1967 original (Getty)The winningest of Moto Guzzi riders (47), Omobono Tenni outside the works, post-war at a guess. He died during practice for the 1948 Swiss GP at Bremgarten. Raced for Maserati in 1936-37 (Moto Guzzi)This undated panorama of the Moto Guzzi facility shows the proximity of the factory and lake (Moto Guzzi)Omobono Tenni display. These 1933-1951 Guzzi Bicilindrica 120-degree, circa 56bhp 500 V-twins won 64 GPs from ’33 to the mid-1950s and took the Italian Championship seven times (M Bisset)
Postscript…
A visit to Guzzi’s Mandello site is a must for any car or ‘bike buff, even a fringe bike person like me. So too is a visit to Lake Como. The middle-lake towns of Varenna and Menaggio are hard to beat as places to stay in their own right, and in terms of their ease of access to other parts of the lake by ferry or train.
Via Emanuele Vittorio Parodi remains home to the company’s headquarters, production facility, wind tunnel, library and the museum. The place oozes patina that can only be provided by age.
It has displays from the company’s history, over 80 ‘bikes, engines and prototypes. Book online though, there are strict limits on the number of punters in the two-storey building at a time to ensure you enjoy it, rocking up in the warmer months is risky without a ticket.
Etcetera…
(The Motor Cycle)(The Motor Cycle)(The Motor Cycle)(The Motor Cycle) (Moto Guzzi)
Italian Air Corps photographs of Giorgio Parodi and Giovanni Ravelli, below.
For more on the amazing life of the multi-facetted Parodi; aviation, manufacturing, shipping, sport, philanthropy and a whole lot more, see here; Home (2) (giorgioparodi.it)
(Moto Guzzi)(unattributed)
Works racer Enrico Lorenzetti rides one of the first 1921 G.P. 500s outside the EICMA (Milan Motorcycle Show), Mechanics Pavilion, Milan in 1952. This machine was restored in 1994 and forms part of Guzzi’s museum collection.
Lorenzetti raced a Guzzi Albatross 250 and Condor 500 pre-war. He won the 250cc World Championship in 1952, was third in 1956, and second in the 350cc 1953 title chase in a pro-career with Moto Guzzi from 1949-1957.
(AMCN)
Keith Campbell aboard a Guzzi 500 V8 at Assen during the 1957 Dutch GP weekend. These machines were raced with Dolphin fairings rather than the more familiar Dustbins on three occasions. The machine first raced at Imola in late March 1956.
(M Bisset)
Rear of the bike – which is surprisingly compact – with its battery of exhausts. Below is a cutaway drawing published in the Motor Cycling April 1956 issue. Jack Crawley is the artist; the top-inset shows the gear selector mechanism, the bottom one shows details of the plain main-bearing construction.
(Motor Cycling)Works Moto Guzzi pilots Bill Lomas and Keith Campbell in November 1957 (S Scholes Collection)Dickie Dale on the 350 leads 500 Moto Guzzi mounted teammate Bill Lomas at Bandiana Army Base near Albury-Wodonga (oldbikemag.com.au)
Moto Guzzi energetically sought export markets including Australia, but had been unsuccessful despite Fergus Anderson’s 1949 Tour.
Off the back of Geoff Duke’s Gilera Down Under races in 1954-55; Geoff Duke, Gilera 500/4, Australia 1954… | primotipo… George Lynn, the tour promoter, organised Englishmen Bill Lomas (350cc World Champ on Guzzis in 1955-56) and Dickie Dale to bring their factory 350cc and 500cc singles out over the summer of 1955-56.
They rode with much success at meetings in Perth, Adelaide, Bandiana, Mount Druitt and Fishermans Bend. Lomas flew to Bathurst to inspect Mount Panorama at the end of his trip, but, sadly the green Guzzis were already crated and on their way to the Imola European season opener.
The photograph is of 1954 350cc World Champ, Fergus Anderson (B King Collection)
Moto Guzzi’s Libro D’Oro (golden book) 1954 is what appears to be an annual ‘corporate brag book’.
Bob King’s edition is beautifully designed, bound and printed for its day. The 74 pages include many on the company’s sporting success – every single race win and record from 1921 to the end of 1954 are listed – with plenty of photographs of the ’54 season, a piece on the wind tunnel and other recent factory innovations and eight pages of what today would be termed the Corporate Social Responsibility report. It’s pretty amazing for its day.
(B King Collection)(B King Collection)
There is no financial information of any sort. It’s a happy-clappy type of document aimed at staff, key suppliers and other interested parties rather than a corporate document with all of the (necessary) formality and (unnecessary) boredom that implies.
(B King Collection)
The two buildings shown on the left of the above page are Moto Guzzi’s hydroelectric plants built at Zerbo and Pioverna (actually Valsassina) post-war.
Zerbo is 120km, and Valsassina 20km away from Mandello del Lario. This type of capex gives one a sense of scale of Moto Guzzi and its financial and political clout. In post-war Italy the necessary power must have been costly to make this kind of otherwise non-core investment. Perhaps Marshall Plan dollars was involved? Time to buy a Moto Guzzi book methinks!…
(B King Collection)
Reference Credits…
‘Moto Guzzi: Libro D’Oro 1954’ from the Bob King Collection, Motoguzzi.com, Wikipedia, Chris Stops, The Motor Cycle, Sergio Piotin, Piaggio S.p.a, Pirelli Foundation, Moto Guzzi Archive, Raymond Zehringer, TT Race Pics, AMCN-Australian Motor Cycle News, Iain Gordon, rideapart.com, giorgioparadi.it, oldbikemag.com.au, Moto Ciclismo via Stephen Scholes
Tailpieces…
(Moto Guzzi)
All set for the off in the 1953 Milan-Taranto race – who are these fellas? A record 426 bikes started this race on ‘the classical course’; Milan-Bologna-Firenze-Roma-Napoli-Bari-Brindisi-Lecce-Taranto. Duilio Agostini won the 1300km race on a Moto Guzzi Dondolino 500 in 11 hours 51.10 seconds at an average speed of 109.7km/h. I’m not sure how our friends on the outfit fared.
Agostini (no relation to Giacomo) was a local favourite, he was born in Mandello del Lario and met Guzzi executives and race riders working at his parents hotel overlooking Lake Como (now the Giardinetto, coincidently we had a fabulous degustation lunch at this place before our museum tour – highly recommended).
Duilio Agostini about to jump aboard his Moto Guzzi Dondolino 500 during his victorious ’53 Milano-Taranto ride (unattributed)Looking across Lake Como to Oliveto Lario from the Giardinetto Restaurant/Hotel in Mandello del Lario once owned by Agostini’s family. Do make the effort if you are in the ‘hood, it was outstanding tucker (M Bisset)
He joined the factory post-war and soon graduated through the Client Service section, road-bike tester, then a test role of the race bikes in the Experimental Department. This led to racing a Guzzi Condor 500 (the company’s first successful customer racer first built in 1938 and revamped as the Dondolino – rocking chair – in 1946) either loaned to him or won in a competition.
The Milano-Taranto victory on a Dondolino sealed a place in the factory race-squad; he was regarded as a factory employee rather than a full works-rider by some. Despite often having second string machines Agostini won an Italian 250cc title beating works rider Lorenzetti, and the 1956 French 350cc GP.
While contesting the 1955 Belgian Grand Prix he met an Australian, Margaret Ward. They soon married, Duilio retired from racing after the factory withdrew to establish what became a major service and sales facility in Mandello del Lario ably assisted by daughters Alis and Lindy. He died in 2008.
The New Zealand International Grand Prix Racing Team about to fly to London via Sydney, Singapore, Hong Kong and Bombay, arriving at the beginning of April 1961. Auckland Airport, from left is Bill Hanna, Angus Hyslop and Ross Pedersen. Don’t stress guys, it’ll be ok!
Once in the UK they meet up with Denny Hulme, basing themselves around the Kingston-upon-Thames area. As a Driver to Europe alumnus, Denny also drove under the NZIGP Team banner.
This is the second of three articles written by Alec Hagues around photographs taken by Bill Hanna, Alec’s father in law who was Angus Hyslop’s team manager/mechanic during 1961. The first instalment is here; Angus Hyslop, Kiwi Champion through Bill Hanna’s lens… | primotipo…
Enjoy the fabulous photographs and first hand account of elite level international Formula Junior from another age.
(B Hanna)
On 15 or 16 April 1961, before they started racing, the team visited Oulton Park in Cheshire for the GT Cars Trophy Race. Here above are the Lotus Elites of John Wagstaff #16, Bill Allen and Peter Arundell; there are some seven Elites in the race.
However, the big news was the debut of the Jaguar E-Type in racing, the first production example having rolled off the production line in Coventry only the month before. Note the group of admirers all-over Graham Hill’s Jag, shunning Jack Sears’ Ferrari!
(B Hanna)(B Hanna)
Roy Salvadori #5 above leads Graham Hill #4 off the grid, both driving E-Types. Just behind are John Wagstaff #16 (Lotus Elite Climax), Jack Sears #3 (Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta) and Innes Ireland #8 (Aston Martin DB4).
(B Hanna)
The Cars
Angus’ Lotus 20-Ford/Martin in green, seen in the paddock at Goodwood above. A recap, Angus shipped his Cooper T43-Climax 1964cc over to the UK. We know this because it ‘comes back’ at the end of the season, at least as far as NZ Customs are concerned.
He is on the NZIGPA Driver To Europe scheme which is affiliated with Cooper Cars Ltd, and the team spend time at Cooper’s garage in Surbiton. Yet he drives a Lotus the whole time he is in Europe.
(B Hanna)
Denny’s Cooper T56-BMC (later Ford) in blue/silver, is seen here at Roskilde during practice for the Copenhagen Cup in May, he is ahead of Angus who later won the race, Denny placed seventh.
While Angus has Bill and Ross on his team, Denny enlists the help of journalist Eoin Young. With no disrespect to Eoin’s memory, it seems highly likely Bill gets involved with both cars!
The NZIGP Team drivers wear silver helmets with a maroon stripe.
(B Hanna)
Angus’s first race in Europe (above) is the BARC Whit Monday Meeting at Goodwood, 22 May 1961. A number of sources report that he wins the race.
At the Roskilde, V Copenhagen Cup, 28 May 1961 Denny bravely returned to the track where his Kiwi team-mate George ‘Joe’ Lawton was killed the previous September.
As noted above, Angus won the race, David Piper was second in another Lotus 20 Ford.
Angus and Denny’s cars on their trailers in the paddock – the depot – at Roskilde.
(B Hanna)
On 4 June 1961 in the IX Grand Prix de Rouen Junior at the Circuit de Rouen-les-Essarts, Angus takes 11th and Denny DNF with both suffering engine problems.
Who is the young businessman at Le Mans? Marvellous, atypical Denny portrait (B Hanna)
Le Mans 10-11 June 1961: XXIX Le Mans 24 Hour.
There are many pictures out there of the Abarth 850S co-driven by Angus and Denny so successfully in this race. So here’s a picture of Denny Hulme in a suit with a tanker and a theodolite.
Having taken somewhat disappointing sixth and 18th spots respectively on 2 July 1961 in the V Coupe International de Vitesse des Formule Junior, Circuit de Reims-Gueux, Denny and Angus returned to the UK before embarking on the long trip towing their cars in convoy to Sicily.
Here are Denny (in classic barefoot pose) and Eoin with the convoy parked up, probably waiting to board the ferry at Villa San Giovanni (below).
(B Hanna)(B Hanna)
23 July 1961: III Gran Premio di Messina, at the Circuito Laghi di Ganzirri.
In their best joint performance of the summer, the Kiwi duo took first and second places with Angus edging Denny out of the top-spot.
(B Hanna)
The grid shot above is probably heat 1, Massimo Natili, Taraschi Fiat #6 on the grid alongside the Lola Mk3 Ford of Britain’s Bill McGowen #15 and Geki #42 Lotus 20 Ford. This heat was won by Lorenzo Bandini from Jo Siffert and Angus.
(B Hanna)
Above is probably the Lotus 20-Fords of Bandini #50 and Siffert #37 on the front row of the grid, with Angus’s similar car creeping into shot at left.
The stunning panorama below is probably heat 2, Bob Anderson’s Lotus 20-Ford and Colin Davis’ Lola Mk3 Ford leading, with Denny probably largely concealed behind them. Davis won the heat from Anerson and Hulme.
(B Hanna)
Brands Hatch, 7 August 1961 a John Davy Trophy meeting. I think I see Angus and Denny in there, mid-grid. Hyslop was 12th and Hulme a DNF in the race won by Peter Arundell’s Team Lotus Lotus 20 Ford.
And below, on a typical grey English summer day at Goodwood, 19 August 1961 II BARC Formula Junior Championship, perhaps that’s Alan Rees leading in the Lotus.
Rees won from Gavin Youl’s MRD Ford and Dennis Taylor’s Lola Mk3 Ford with Angus fourth. Denny was in Sweden that weekend contesting the Kanonloppet, he too was fourth.
(B Hanna)(B Hanna)
Back at the Roskildering for the Danish Grand Prix weekend of 26-27 August 1961 above.
Aside from the Formula 1 Grand Prix (non-championship) feature race and Formula Junior (in which Angus and Denny were third and fourth respectively), and saloon car racing featuring John Whitmore in his Austin Mini Seven, the organisers put on this display of stunt driving.
You are seeing about half of the entire circuit in this one photo.
(B Hanna)
Angus’ final 1961 race seems to have been the September Trophy meeting at Crystal Palace on 2 September 1961.
In the line up above we see Angus Hyslop #6, Eric Harris Alexis Mk3 Ford, Steve Ouvaroff with the #15 Competition Cars of Australia built Ausper T3 Ford, Gavin Youl in the first first Brabham, the MRD Ford #8 and Denny at far right in #31; an all-Australasian crew with the exception of Harris. In the background is Ian Raby’s Cooper T56 Ford.
Angus was seventh, while Denny DNQ, Trevor Taylor’s works Lotus 20 Ford won.
The butt shot below is of Youl’s MRD at the same meeting.
(B Hanna)
Angus and Bill returned safely to New Zealand and although Angus only drove two more seasons in racing cars, both enjoyed a lifelong passion for motor racing.
Meanwhile, the tale of how when Angus’s Cooper T45-Climax 1964cc arrived back in New Zealand a couple of months later it had become a T53 2495cc Lowline has been told elsewhere.
Part 3 soon…
Credits…
Photography by the the late Bill Hanna and words by Alec Hagues
Tailpiece…
(B Hanna)
Angus is putting on his helmet somewhere in the UK, one of our readers, Roger H has kindly identified the shot as probably the Snetterton meeting on 14 May, 1961.
The Lola Mk2 front and centre is the Scuderia Light Blue machine of Hugh Dibley. It’s possibly Brian Hart in Len Terry’s Terrier #8, then Angus #1, Reg Brown in the Lotus 20 #3 and Bill Moss in Lotus 18 #10.
GV Wolf WD1 Chev, Trois Rivieres 1977 (MotorSport)
1997 F1 World Champion Jacques Villeneuve’s dad doesn’t have awe inspiring race-statistics, so why is he revered by generations of F1 fans born long after he died? Mark Bisset looks back at the French-Canadian legend 40 years after that tragic May 8, 1982 Belgian GP weekend at Zolder
Before the carbon-fibre era few of motor racing’s supreme automotive acrobats died quietly in their beds.
Bernd Rosemeyer, Jochen Rindt, Ronnie Peterson, Ayrton Senna, Stefan Bellof, Gilles Villeneuve and their ilk had God-given skills which awed fellow competitors and spectators alike.
Spectacular car control, seemingly impossible passes and flagrant disregard for their own safety were their modus operandi, performed without the many ‘safety nets’ of modern F1.
Attack! GV during the September 1977 GP de Trois Rivieres, Canada weekend. Q3 and 14th with engine problems aboard Walter Wolf’s Wolf WD1 Chev. Patrick Tambay took the win, Lola T333CS Chev (MotorSport)Gilles during the 1977 British GP weekend at Silverstone, F1 newbie (LAT)
Joseph Gilles Henri Villeneuve (18/1/1950-8/5/1982) was one of the most spectacular practitioners of his art, he wanted – needed – to be the quickest racer out there in every session. To his ultimate cost.
Seville Villeneuve whetted his son’s competitive juices by giving him a snowmobile, by 1972 Gilles was a pro-driver with Skiroule, in 1974 he won the World Championship Snowmobile Derby at Eagle River, Wisconsin.
Villeneuve mounts his Alouette 650 single-track, all set to win at Eagle River in 1974 (CJ Ramstad)
Seville nurtured Gilles’ early interest in cars too. Villeneuve took a Jim Russell course at Mont Tremblant, then demonstrated the same mastery of machine on bitumen as on snow aboard a Magnum Formula Ford, winning a regional Quebec championship in 1973.
Villeneuve later said of snowmobiling “Every winter you could reckon on three or four big over 100mph spills. They slide a lot, which taught me about control. Unless you were in the lead you could see nothing with all the snow blowing about, it was good for the reactions and stopped me worrying about racing in the rain.”
GV, Magnum Formula Ford in 1973 Trois Rivieres? (MGV)March 77B Ford BDA, Trois Rivieres 1977. Fourth from pole, Price Cobb won in another 77B (MotorSport)
Villeneuve progressed and was immediately quick in an Ecurie Canada March 74B Formula Atlantic (FA) in 1974 until the wild-man broke his leg at Mosport mid-season.
Fully committed, Gilles sold his home to fund a privately run March 75B the following year, travelling to the races with wife Joann and his children Melanie and Jacques in a motorhome. His breakthrough win came in the wet at Gimli, then he stunned visiting GP drivers by putting the March third on the grid at Quebec’s GP de Trois Rivieres street race.
Racing for the top-gun Ecurie Canada equipe again in 1976, he won Canadian and US (IMSA) FA Championships then popped the icing on the cake by winning Trois Rivieres from pole ahead of Alan Jones, James Hunt, Vittorio Brambilla, Bobby Rahal and Patrick Tambay.
Teddy Mayer tasked Leo Wybrott, Stevie Bun and John Hornby to look after Gilles’ McLaren M23/8. “He was communicating with me so well, and we started to change the set-up of the car and he went faster and faster. We were fourth or fifth quickest, eventually qualifying ninth. We didn’t qualify higher because we didn’t have access to the soft Goodyears” Wybrott recalled. (MotorSport)Villeneuve lapping Silverstone in ’77. His first race outside North America was in the 1976 Pau GP for Ron Dennis’ Project Four outfit, Q10 and DNF in a year old March 752 Hart impressed the F2 regulars (LAT)
The international racing world was abuzz with the other-worldly-skills of the pint-sized Canadian magician. No less an admirer than James Hunt pressed his cause with McLaren’s Teddy Mayer who ran a car for Gilles at the 1977 British GP.
Villeneuve explored the limits of his M23, spinning on most of Silverstone’s corners as he worked out the car’s limits, outqualifying his vastly more experienced teammate, Jochen Mass. He finished 11th despite a pitstop for what turned out to be a broken water temperature gauge.
Further impressive Formula Atlantic drives and pace aboard Walter Wolf’s wilful Wolf WD1 Chev Can-Am car established his big-car credentials.
Villeneuve in the Wolf WD1 Chev, circuit unknown, 1977. The Canadian was immediately quick in this challenging car vacated by Chris Amon upon his retirement from racing (unattributed)GV and Patrick Tambay at Trois Rivieres in September 1977. Tambay won the race (and the series overall) in the Carl Haas’ Lola T333CS Chev behind him, GV DNF engine from Q3. #25 is Bobby Rahal’s Lola T296 Ford BDX (LAT)
When Mayer signed Patrick Tambay to replace Mass in 1978, Enzo Ferrari bagged Villeneuve. Gilles remained a Ferrari driver – surely ordained at his birth – for the balance of his way-too-short career.
His first 1977 start at Mosport ended with a DNF, tragedy followed at Fuji a fortnight later. Gilles challenged Ronnie Peterson’s Tyrrell P34 six-wheeler under brakes, the pair collided causing the Canadian’s Ferrari to vault the armco into a restricted area where it killed a spectator and a marshall. Despite a no-fault finding his year couldn’t have ended on a worse note.
Villeneuve mid-flight at Fuji with the fatal consequences imminent. Peterson’s Tyrrell P34 rear damage ‘clear’. Rare shot of the underside of a 312T2 Ferrari inclusive of the pipe-bender’s artistry (unattributed)GV on the way to his first GP win at home in October 1978, Montreal, Ferrari 312T3. His future teammate, Scheckter was second in a Wolf WR6 Ford and present teammate Reutemann was third (unattributed)
1978 was character building. Villeneuve was unsurprisingly bested by his seasoned Ferrari teammate Carlos Reutemann who won three Grands Prix in the year of the dominant ground-effect Lotus 79, Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson.
After a series of early season DNFs and accidents the Italian press were baying for his blood, twelve months later they wanted him anointed a Saint.
Better performances in later ’78 were capped by a season-ending Mosport home win. His emotions at the year’s conclusion were the complete reverse of those twelve months before.
Gilles and Jody at Hockenheim in July1979. Alan Jones started his late season run of wins that weekend in his Williams FW07 Ford. Sceckter was fourth and Villeneuve eighth (unattributed)
Enzo Ferrari’s pairing of F1’s 1973 and 1978 enfants terrible, Jody Scheckter and Villeneuve in 1979 seemed a volatile Molotov Cocktail to many pit-pundits, but the kindred spirits gelled.
They extracted all Mauro Forghieri’s ground effect Ferrari 312T4 had. Gilles had the edge in outright pace – both won three Grands Prix – but Jody’s better placings, and Gilles preparedness to keep to team instructions, in a line-ball season edged out the Canadian by four points.
British GP, Silverstone 1979. Ferrari 312T4 14th on the day Clay Regazzoni i took a famous first win for Williams – FW07 Ford (M Lee)It may not always have been the quickest way around a racetrack, but GV’s style sure was entertaining! Zolder, May 1979, 7th, Scheckter won (MotorSport)
Two races which partially forged the Villeneuve legend were at Dijon and Zandvoort.
Two-mad-little-Froggies, Auvergne’s Rene Arnoux and Quebec’s Gilles Villeneuve went at it hammer and tongs in the French GP’s final laps in an epic, breath taking, wheel to wheel-tapping battle between Renault RE10 and Ferrari 312T4 for second place.
In a magnum-opus of car control the pair waged a dice the likes of which GP racing hasn’t seen since. The duo gave each other just enough room – centimetres – to carry off a balletic-opera rather than tragic-comedy which concluded in Gilles’ favour.
So all-consuming was this dice that Renault and Jean Pierre Jabouille’s first turbo-car, and first GP win (Renault RE10) were almost forgotten!
During the Dutch GP’s closing laps Villeneuve’s left-rear tyre exploded. Undeterred, and desperate for points he reversed back onto the track and headed for the distant pits shredding the tyre, wheel and left-side suspension assembly. Gilles devotees saw it as his passionate will to win while his detractors offered the display as further evidence that he was absolutely bonkers…
Crazy last laps at Dijon in 1979: Villeneuve 312T4 and Rene Arnoux, Renault RE10 (MotorSport)Ferrari 126CK, Dijon DNF French GP 1981 (MotorSport)
1980 was a Ferrari disaster as more advanced ground effect cars bested the 312T5, limited as it was by the width of its 180-degree V12 (or Flat-12 if you wish) which impinged on critical sidepod/tunnel size.
Ferrari joined the turbo-age in 1981 with the 550-600bhp 1.5-litre 126CK. Its combination of tricky power delivery mixed with chassis and aerodynamic shortcomings created a machine in which Gilles comprehensively blew-off new teammate, Didier Pironi after Scheckter retired (Villeneuve outqualified Pironi 10-5 that year).
Villeneuve showed plenty of controlled aggression, winning at Monaco after keeping the tricky car on the island as others crashed or had mechanical misfortune.
Three weeks later at Jarama, Gilles took the Spanish GP lead on lap 14 then fronted a high-speed freight train of Jacques Laffite, John Watson, Carlos Reutemann and Elio De Angelis, nose-to-tail for 18 laps in a classic battle of a more powerful but ill-handling car holding off four better handling cars. The top-5 were separated by 1.5 seconds at the finish of a thriller in which Gilles put not a foot wrong.
On the way to winning the 1981 Monaco GP, Ferrari 126CK. Jones second in his Williams FW07C Ford and Laffitte third in Ligier JS17 Matra (unattributed)Here we go with 2 laps to run, Imola 1982 (unattributed)
And so, to the Final Act.
1982 started as ‘81 finished, Gilles outqualified his friend Pironi – they were mates let’s not forget – four nil aboard the improved 126C2 at Kyalami, Rio, Long Beach and Imola.
Pironi was feeling the pressure, why would Ferrari keep him if he couldn’t deliver the goods? The consistent gap between he and Gilles was marked.
The San Marino Grand Prix grid was decimated by the ongoing FOCA/FISA turf/sporting/commercial battle, ten of the FOCA teams didn’t enter. After the retirement of the leading Renaults, Villeneuve led Pironi (as usual).
Ferrari’s ‘slow’ pitboard was interpreted as slow and hold position by Gilles. Pironi passed Villeneuve, Villeneuve re-took the lead three times, and then slowed thrice. Despite this – Villeneuve’s superiority over the Frenchman crystal clear to all over the previous 15-months – Pironi passed again and took the chequered flag having interpreted the signal differently. Or took a win he badly needed and hadn’t achieved mano et mano in fair combat.
Gilles burned with fury, setting up the tragedy which unfolded at Zolder a fortnight later on May 8, 1982.
Zolder pits, May 8, 1982. GV ready for the off, Ferrari 126C2 chassis #056GV 126C2 #055 at Kyalami in January 1982. The monocoque chassis was a composite structure made of Hexcel carbon fibre and aluminium honeycomb, a far cry from the strength of the high speed carbon fibre dodgem-F1s of today
Fuelled by anger and determined to beat Pironi’s better qualifying time, Villeneuve set off on those final laps, fell short, then collided with Jochen Mass’ March at 120-140mph as both cars changed direction before Terlamenbocht – Mass moved his March, in fifth gear but going much slower than Villeneuve, to the right to allow the Ferrari to pass on the left – launching the Ferrari into the air and then a series of horrific cartwheels. The hapless racer suffered a fracture of the cervical vertebrae and a severed spinal chord, he died at 9:12pm that evening at the University of St Raphael Hospital in Louvain
Canada and the racing world mourned, as many still do.
Based on statistics Villeneuve isn’t one of the greats, but like Nuvolari, Rosemeyer, Rindt and Peterson, Gilles is revered for the passion, brio, fire and electricity he produced in a racing car every time he jumped aboard.
When Villeneuve was on track the beer-tents emptied. The automotive acrobat was about to strut his stuff, sadly the catch-net and the gods were absent on that day in Belgium 40 short years ago.
“I know that no human being can perform miracles. But Gilles made you wonder sometimes,” quipped Jacques Laffite.
R.I.P Gilles Villeneuve. We salute you.
Credits…
MotorSport, LAT, CJ Ramstad, museegillesvilleneuve.com, Martin Lee, Leo Wybrott on auto123.com, Getty Images, ‘Gilles Villeneuve:The Life of the Legendary Racing Driver’ Gerald Donaldson
Tailpiece…
Last lap. Still on the hop, quallies useless by then but he was still on the hop…
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari F1-75, Albert Park 2022 (formula1news.co.uk)
Ferrari have been fantastic this year, as they often are in seasons of a new F1 formula. Mark Bisset analyses that notion and calculates the Maranello mob’s likely chances of success…
Aren’t the 2022 F1 rules fantastic! The FIA tossed the rule book up in the air – in a highly sophisticated kind of way of course – and it landed as they hoped with a few long overdue changes in grid makeup.
Ferrari up front is good for F1, anyone other than Mercedes will do, their domination of modern times has made things a bit dreary.
It’s way too early to call the season, but two out of four for Ferrari has promise given the budget-cap. “It’ll be ten races before McLaren have their new car. And it won’t be all new, that’s not possible within the budget constraints,” Joe Ricciardo told me on the morning of the AGP.
By the end of the season, the new-competitive-paradigm will be clear to the team’s Technical Directors, next year’s cars will reflect that. In the meantime, we have great, different looking cars the performance shortcomings of which can be addressed, to an extent.
For many years Ferrari was a good bet in the first season of a new set of regulations, let’s look at how they’ve gone since 1950 on the basis that history is predictive of the future…
Froilan Gonzalez and Ferrari 375 win the ‘51 British GP from pole. JM Fangio and Gigi Villoresi were second and third in Alfa 159 and Ferrari 375 (goodwood.com)
Enzo Ferrari ran a family business, while he was technically conservative and kept a wary eye on the lire, his first championship GP winning car, the Tipo 375 4.5-litre normally aspirated V12 raced by Froilan Gonzalez in the 1951 British GP at Silverstone commenced a new engine paradigm (achievements of the Talbot Lago T26Cs duly recognised).
Since the 1923 Fiat 805 GP winners had been mainly, but not exclusively powered by two-valve, twin-cam, supercharged straight-eights, like the 1950-1951 World Championship winning Alfa Romeo 158-159s were.
Alfa’s 1951 win (JM Fangio) was the last for a supercharged car until Jean -Pierre Jabouille’s Renault RS10 won the 1979 French GP, and Ferrari were victorious in the 1982 Constructors Championship with the turbo-charged 126C2.
When Alfa withdrew from GP racing at the end of 1951, and BRM appeared a likely non-starter, the FIA held the World Championship to F2 rules given the paucity of F1 cars to make decent grids.
Alberto Ascari, Ferrari 500 Spa, Belgian GP 1952. He won from his teammate Nino Farina and Robert Manzon, Gordini 16 (MotorSport)
Aurelio Lampredi’s existing 2-litre, four-cylinder F2 Ferrari 500 proved the dominant car in Alberto Ascari’s hands taking back-to-back championships in 1953-53.
Alberto’s ‘winningest’ 500 chassis, #005 was raced with great success by Australians Tony Gaze and Lex Davison. Davo won the 1957 and 1958 AGPs in it and our first Gold Star, awarded in 1957. Australia’s fascination with all things Ferrari started right there.
After two years of domination Ferrari were confident evolutions of the 500 would suffice for the commencement of the 2.5-litre formula (1954-1960), but the 555/625 Squalo/Super Squalos were dogs no amount of development could fix.
Strapped for cash, Ferrari was in deep trouble until big-spending Gianni Lancia came to his aid. Lancia’s profligate expenditure on some of the most stunning sports and racing cars of all time brought the company to its knees in 1955.
While company founder Vincenzo Lancia turned in his grave, Gianni’s mother dealt with the receivers and Enzo Ferrari chest-marked, free of charge, a fleet of superb, new, Vittorio Jano designed Lancia D50s, spares and personnel in a deal brokered by the Italian racing establishment greased with a swag of Fiat cash.
Juan Manuel Fangio duly delivered the Lancia Ferrari goods by winning the 1956 F1 Drivers Championship in a Lancia Ferrari D50 V8.
JM Fangio clipping the apex at Copse, Silverstone in 1956 Lancia Ferrari D50. The Alfonso De Portago/Peter Collins D50 was second and Jean Behra Maserati 250F third (LAT)Silverstone again, this time Mike Hawthorn in 1958, Ferrari Dino 246. Peter Collins’ Dino won from Hawthorn and Roy Salvadori’s Cooper T45 Climax (LAT)
Mike Hawthorn followed up with the 1958 Drivers’ Championship victory in the superb Dino 246 V6 which begat Scuderia Ferrari’s next change-of-formula success in 1961.
Concerned with rising F1 speeds (there is nothing new in this world my friends) the FIA imposed a 1.5-litre limit from 1961-1965.
Ferrari raced a 1.5-litre F2 Dino variant from 1958 so were superbly placed to win the 1961 championship despite their first mid-engined 156 racer’s chassis and suspension geometry shortcomings.
The (mainly) British opposition relied on the Coventry Climax 1.5-litre FPF four which gave away heaps of grunt to the Italian V6, only Stirling Moss aboard Rob Walker’s Lotus 18 Climax stood in Ferrari’s way. The championship battle was decided in Phil Hill’s favour after the grisly death of his teammate Count ‘Taffy’ Von Trips and 15 Italian spectators at Monza.
Ferrari 156 at Modena in 1961 (ferrari.com)
By 1964 Ferrari – never quick to adopt new technology back then – had ditched the 156’s Borrani wire wheels, spaceframe chassis and Weber carburettors thanks to Mauro Forghieri, the immensely gifted Modenese engineer behind much of Ferrari’s competition success for the next couple of decades. John Surtees won the ’64 F1 Drivers and Constructors Championships in a Ferrari 158 V8.
With ‘The Return to Power’, as the 1966-1986 3-litre F1 was billed (3-litres unsupercharged, 1.5-litres supercharged) – sportscars were making a mockery of the pace of 1.5-litre F1 cars – Ferrari and Surtees had a mortgage on the 1966 championships until they shot themselves in the foot.
Coventry Climax, the Cosworth Engineering of the day, withdrew from racing at the end of 1965 leaving their customers scratching around for alternative engines.
Ferrari were again in the box-seat in ’66 as their 312 V12 engined racer was ready nice and early. It was an assemblage of new chassis and an engine and gearbox plucked from the Maranello sportscar parts bins. With a championship seemingly in-the-bag, Modenese-Machiavellian-Machinations led to Surtees spitting the dummy over incompetent team management and walked out.
Look out blokes, ‘comin through! John Surtees at Eau Rouge, Spa, Ferrari 312 in 1966, ‘Grand Prix’ cinematographers totally unperturbed by the Flying Ferrari. Surtees won from Jochen Rindt’s Cooper T81 Maserati and Lorenzo Bandini’s Ferrari 158/246 (MotorSport)
It was the happiest of days for Jack Brabham, his increasingly quick and reliable Brabham BT19 Repco V8 comfortably saw off Lorenzo Bandini and Mike Parkes who weren’t as quick or consistent as Big John.
Scuderia Ferrari were then in the relative GP wilderness until 1970 just after Fiat acquired Ferrari, but leaving Enzo to run the race division until his demise.
Fiat’s cash was soon converted into 512S sportscars and the most successful V12 ever built. Ferrari’s Tipo 015 180-degree 3-litre masterpiece won 37 GPs from 1970-1980 in the hands of Jacky Ickx, Clay Regazzoni, Mario Andretti, Niki Lauda, Carlos Reutemann, Jody Scheckter and Gilles Villeneuve. Not to forget Constructors’ titles for Ferrari in 1975-1977 and 1979, and Drivers’ championships for Lauda (1975,1977) and Scheckter (1979).
Oops, getting a bit off-topic.
Gilles Villeneuve in the fugly but effective and reliable Ferrari 312T4 at Monaco in 1979. Note the hard working, fully extended skirts. Jody Scheckter won in the other T4 from Clay Regazzoni’s Williams FW07 Ford and Carlos Reutemann’s Lotus 79 Ford (unattributed)
The next F1 step-change wasn’t FIA mandated, but was rather as a consequence of Peter Wright and Colin Chapman’s revolutionary 1977/78 Lotus 78/79 ground effects machines which rendered the rest of the grid obsolete.
Forghieri stunned the F1 world when Ferrari adapted their wide, squat 525bhp 3-litre twelve to a championship winning ground effects car despite the constraints the engine’s width bestowed upon aerodynamicists intent on squeezing the largest possible side-pods/tunnels between the engine/chassis and car’s outer dimensions. Scheckter and Canadian balls-to-the-wall firebrand Villeneuve took three GPs apiece to win titles for Scheckter and Ferrari.
Renault led the technology path forward with its 1.5-litre turbo-charged V6 engines from 1977 but it was Ferrari who won the first Manufacturers Championships so equipped in 1982-83.
The Harvey Postlethwaite designed 560-680bhp 1.5-litre turbo V6 126C2 won three Grands Prix in an awful 1982 for Ferrari. Practice crashes at Zolder and Hockenheim killed Villeneuve and ended Didier Pironi’s career. Keke Rosberg won the drivers title aboard a Williams FW08 Ford in a year when six teams won Grands Prix.
High speed Jarama caravan in 1981. Brilliant drive of controlled precision and aggression by Gilles Villeneuve won the race for Ferrari. His more powerful and more unwieldy 126CK just held his pursuers at bay; Jacques Laffite, Ligier JS17 Matra, John Watson, McLaren MP4/1 Ford, Carlos Reutemann’s, Williams FW07C Ford and the just visible Elio de Angelis, Lotus 87 Ford – they finished in this order (unattributed)
Despite a change to a 3.5-litre/1.5-litres four-bar of boost formula in 1987-88 Ferrari stuck with its turbo-cars. The F1/87 and F1/87/88C designed by Gustav Brunner delivered fourth and second in the Constructors Championships, the victorious cars were the Williams FW11B Honda and McLaren MP4/4 Honda.
Enzo Ferrari died in August 1988, not that the company’s Machiavellian culture and quixotic decision making was at an end…
Rock star ex-McLaren designer John Barnard joined Ferrari in 1987. The first fully-Barnard-car was the seductive 640 built for the first year of the stunning, technically fascinating 1989-1994 3.5-litre formula.
This 660bhp V12 machine, fitted with the first electro-hydraulic, seven-speed paddle-shift, semi-automatic gearbox won three races (Nigel Mansell two, Gerhard Berger, one) and finished third in the constructor’s championship.
Innovative as ever, Barnard’s car wasn’t reliable nor quite powerful enough to beat the Alain Prost (champion) and Ayrton Senna driven McLaren MP4/5B Hondas. Despite six wins aboard the evolved 641 (five for Prost, one to Mansell) in 1990 the car still fell short of McLaren Honda, Senna’s six wins secured drivers and manufacturers titles for the British outfit.
Gerhard Berger pings his Ferrari 640 thru Spa’s Bus Stop chicane in 1989, DNF in the race won by Ayrton Senna’s McLaren MP4/5 Honda (unattributed)
F1’s all-time technology high-water marks are generally regarded as the Williams’ FM14B and FW15C Renault V10s raced by Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost to Drivers and Manufacturers championships in 1992-93. They bristled with innovation deploying active suspension, a semi-automatic gearbox, traction control, anti-lock brakes, fly-by-wire controls and more.
As 1994 dawned Ferrari had been relative also-rans for too long, persevering with V12s long after Renault and Honda V10s had shown the way forward. This period of great diversity – in 1994 Renault, Yamaha, Peugeot, Mugen Honda, Hart, Mercedes Benz and Ilmor Engineering supplied V10s, while Cosworth Engineering provided several different Ford V8s, not to forget Ferrari’s Tipo 043 V12 – ended abruptly at Imola during the horrific May weekend when Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger lost their lives in separate, very public accidents.
In response, FIA chief Max Mosley mandated a series of immediate safety changes and introduced a 3-litre capacity limit from 1995-2004.
Ferrari’s 412T2 V12s finished a distant third in the 1995 Constructors Championship behind Renault powered Benetton and Williams. Much better was the three wins secured by recent signing, Michael Schumacher aboard the V10 (hooray finally!) engined F310, and four with the 310B in 1996-97. Ferrari’s Head of Aerodynamics in this period was Aussie, Willem Toet (1995-1999).
Michael Schumacher nips a brake testing the Ferrari 412T2 at Estoril in November 1995. His final race with Benetton in Adelaide was less than a fortnight before (unattributed)
Ferrari’s Holy Racing Trinity were anointed when Jean Todt, Ross Brawn and Michael Schumacher (not to forget Chief Designer Rory Byrne) came together as CEO, Technical Director and Lead Driver; six Constructors World Championships flowed from 1999 to 2004.
Renault and Fernando Alonso took top honours with the R25 in 2005, but Ferrari were handily placed for the first year of the 2.4-litre V8 formula in a further emasculation of the technical differences between marques in 2006. Mind you, the primeval scream of these things at 20,000rpm or so is something we can only dream of today.
Ferrari’s 248 F1 used an updated F2005 chassis fitted with the new Tipo 056 715-785bhp V8. It came home like a train in the back end of the season, winning seven of the last nine races, but fell short of the Renault R26 in both the Constructors and Drivers titles.
Alonso beat Schumacher 134 points to 121, and Renault 206 points to Ferrari’s 201 but the 248 F1 won 9 races (Schumacher seven, Felipe Massa two) to Renault’s 8 (Alonso seven, Giancarlo Fisichella one), so let’s say it was a line-ball thing…and Kimi Raikkonen brought home the bacon for himself and Ferrari with the new F2007 in 2007.
Michael Schumacher displays the elegant simplicity of his Ferrari 248 on the way to winning the Italian GP, Monza 2006 (unattributed)
In more recent times the whispering 1.6-litre single turbo V6 formula, incorporating an energy recovery system, was introduced in 2014.
Ferrari fielded two world champions for the first time since 1954 (Giuseppe Farina and Alberto Ascari) when Alonso and Raikkonen took the grid in new F14T’s, but that dazzling combo could do no better than two podiums in a season dominated by Lewis Hamilton’s and Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes F1 W05 Hybrids.
Ferrari’s season was a shocker, it was the first time since 1993’s F93A that the Scuderia had not bagged at least one GP win.
Fernando Alonso, Ferrari F14T at Suzuka in October 2014. DNF in the race won by Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes Benz F1W05 Hybrid. What visual atrocities the cars of 2014 were (MotorSport)
So, what does history tell us about Ferrari’s prospects in this 2022 formula change year? Given our simple analysis, at the start of the season Ferrari had a 36% chance of bagging both titles, but with two out of four wins early on for Charles Leclerc they must be at least an even money chance now.
I’m not so sure I’d put my house on them, but I’d happily throw yours on lucky red!
Credits…
formula1news.co.uk, goodwood.com, ferrari.com, LAT, MotorSport
Malcolm Ramsay applies Repco V8 power out of Clubhouse Corner, his Granton Harrison owned Elfin 600C #6908 on its way to fourth place during the October 1970 Mallala Gold Star round, the series won by Leo Geoghegan’s Lotus 59B Waggott that year….
My Australian single-seaters I would like to own and race comprises the Mildren Yellow Submarine Alfa 2.5 V8, Elfin Mono, Elfin 600C/D Repco 2.5 V8, Bowin P8 Hart and Repco V8, and Matich A53 Repco F5000, Richards 201 VW. Lets’ throw in the Mawer 003 Formula Ford and the front engined Tornado Chev to add to the attack on my Super Fund.
Knowledgeable Aussies will want to exclude the ‘Sub as it was built by Alan Mann Racing for Mildrens, so it’s a Pommie car not one of ours. A bummer really as that’s my emotional first choice, always has been with either the Alfa engine or Merv Waggott’s superb 2-litre DOHC four-valve jewel with which it was later fitted – and restored as such.
After that it’s a close run thing but the three 2.5-litre V8 Repco engined Tasman Elfin 600’s are about as good as it gets, I reckon.
About as nicely integrated a bit of kit as there was in 1969. Cooper’s 6908 at its first Mallala test before its Asian Tour where the new car didn’t finish a race (Bob Mills)
Garrie Cooper built three of them. Two 600C’s for he #6908, and John McCormack #7011, plus a 600D #7012which was Garrie’s 1970 Gold Star mount.
Mac’s 600 did a few races using the Coventry Climax 2.5 FPF four-potter from his Brabham BT4 before conversion to Repco V8 power for the final half year the Gold Star was run to the Tasman 2.5 Formula in 1970, F5000 replaced it in 1971.
Just to confuse things, 1970 Tasman eligible cars were 2.5s and F5000, but the 1970 Gold Star – Australia’s domestic single-seater championship – was run for 2.5s only. Go figure, it was a CAMS political compromise clusterfuck of its finest, typical type.
There are no other cars on the planet which won both F1 and FF races surely? OK, ANF1 and FF races anyway!
This is the business end of 600C 6908 complete with 730 Series Repco V8. The 600D was lighter in that Cooper used the 830 Series Repco as a semi-stressed member saving circa 100 pounds of weight overall inclusive of other changes compared to 600C. Gearbox is Hewland’s ubiquitous FT200 5-speed (AJ van Loon)
The Elfin 600 is a superb spaceframe chassis designwhich Cooper built for FF, F3, F2 and ANF1 Tasman 2.5 classes from 1968 to 1971. His previous single-seater, the Mono or Type 100, as the name suggests was a monocoque but customer demand for ease of maintenance and repair resulted in a very stiff, light spaceframe which evolved a bit over the 600’s long production run but in essence was the same from Cooper’s first 1968 Singapore GP winning #6801 chassis to the last built in 1971.
Garrie Cooper and Norm Butler with the prototype Mono Mk2 #6550 at Mallala. In the words of Bruce Allison “One of natures gentlemen, he was a pleasure to deal with and an honour to race against.” Monocoque chassis and pullrod suspension front and rear. Neither driver or mechanic have noticed the spectator in the cars nosecone (Spencer Lambert)
600’s won races in all classes and championships in FF and F2. Larry Perkins, for example, won the 1970 Formula Ford National Series in a 600 FF and the 1972 ANF2 title in a 600B/E Lotus/Ford twin-cam before seeking fame and fortune in British F3 in 1973.
600’s won the 1968 Singapore GP and the 1968 and 1969 Malaysian GP’s.
Cooper 600D, AGP Warwick Farm November 1970. DNF fuel pump in the race won by Matich’s McLaren M10B Repco (Lynton Hemer)
The roll call of 600 pilots includes many Australian and some international greats; Cooper, McCormack, Ramsay, Perkins, John Walker, Bruce Allison, Henk Woelders, Brian Sampson, Ivan Tighe, Richard Knight, Peter Larner, Richard Davison and many others. The cars are popular historic racers these days of course.
Cooper in the first 600, #6801 in the Sandown paddock during 1968, the car in which Garrie won the ’68 Malyasian GP. Look closely, the crop of the shot just gets in the tall, and very spindly looking high rear wing support (Jeff Morrall)
John McCormack (below) looking as pleased as punch with his new Repco 740 Series V8 in the Sandown Gold Star paddock.
It’s 13 September 1970, he was seventh that weekend, the race won by John Harvey’s Jane Repco V8. Mac started the season with his old Coventry Climax FPF in the back of his new car, he was fourth at Lakeside in June and fifth at Oran Park later that month before fitting the Repco engine in time for the September Warwick Farm round.
My Repco friend Rodway Wolfe tells the story of Mac picking up the Repco engine at their HQ’s Maidstone factory, and sticking it in the boot of his Ford Fairlane before retiring to a Footscray pub for a few cleansers with Rodway.
Mac then headed up the Western Highway for the eight hour trek back to Adelaide to instal the engine at Elfin’s Edwardstown factory. The chance of having the flash Fairlane ‘nicked in then very working-class Footscray complete with its valuable cargo was high!
McCormack’s Elfin 600C Repco #7011 at Sandown on the 12/13 September 1970 weekend. #25 is another later Australian Gold Star champion’s car, John Walker’s Elfin 600B Ford. Engine is a 740 Series Repco 2.5 (Wolfe)
It was the start of a very long mutually fruitful relationship between the Taswegian and Repco which blossomed in the F5000 era with a succession of Elfins Mac pedalled with increasing pace as his driving matured. He also raced a Repco Leyland powered McLaren M23, a car I wrote about in detail a while back;
McCormack raced the 600 Repco in the Mallala final round won by Leo Geoghegan’s Lotus 59 Waggott, colliding with Bob Muir’s Mildren entered Mildren Yellow Submarine.
The McCormack 600C Repco at Phillip Island in 1970 (N Tait)
McCormack, Elfin 600C Repco Warwick Farm 5/6 September 1970. Engine in this shot is the later (than 740 Series engine in the shot above) 730 Series (or 830?) Repco (Lynton Hemer)
Garrie Cooper, John McCormack and Malcolm Ramsay were all steerers of the 600 Repco’s in Gold Star events in 1969/70.
Cooper and McCormack were both champions, Mac one of the very best, none of them were ANF1 aces at the time, they were still learning their craft more powerful cars.
My theory is that an Elfin Sports Cars prepared 600 Repco woulda-coulda-shoulda won the Gold Star in 1969 and 1970 with any of Leo Geoghegan, Kevin Bartlett, Max Stewart or John Harvey at the wheel.
A Kevin Bartlett driven 600 Repco could have won the 1970 Tasman, Frank Matich would have done the job as well of course. Indeed, FM would have given Amon, Rindt and Hill a run for their Tasman money in a 600 Repco in 1969. I know there are good commercial reasons why none of them drove Elfins in those years but that’s not my point, which is that with the right dude behind the wheel the cars were Tasman and Gold Star winners in 1969-70.
Still, ‘if yer Aunty had balls she’d be your Uncle’ as the Frank Gardner saying goes.
This is not a detailed treatise of the 600, that’s a much longer piece, for the moment this is a quickie on the three 600 Repco’s to go with some wonderful shots of a model which won a whole lot of races throughout Australasia but could have won a swag more ANF1/Tasman races with an ace behind the wheel.
In fact that last statement is NOT what the 600 was in the main about, which was a customer racing car which was quick straight-outta-the-box in the hands of a competent steerer with the settings Cooper’s highly-tuned-testing-arse built into the cars when they rolled out of his factory.
Space frame chassis, engines to customer choice or class dictates (FF,F3,F2, ANF1) gearboxes Hewland Mk9 or FT200, disc brakes all round, rack and pinion steering (unattributed)
Repco Brabham 830 Series 2.5-litre V8 (TNF)
Repco 830 Series 2.5-litre Tasman V8.
This is the ultimate spec Repco Tasman 2.5 engine developed for Jack Brabham’s ill-fated 1969 Tasman campaign, but first raced by him in the final ’68 Tasman round (Brabham BT23E) at Sandown. It comprises the 800 Series short block and 30 Series cross-flow heads.
In short Jack only raced his Brabham BT31 at Sandown as the car was stranded at the Port Melbourne docks inside its packing crate due to a wharfies-strike.
The engine was SOHC, two valve with chain driven cams. Fitted with Lucas fuel injection the engine developed 295bhp @ 9000rpm. Note the heavily ribbed block, and below, the ribbing socket head cap screws to cross-bolt the main bearing caps.
This engine is the Garrie Cooper Elfin 600D motor, its pictured in Elfin workshop ready for installation. It has the later Indy (760) sump assembly and combined oil pressure/scavenge pump.
Garrie Cooper, Elfin 600D Repco 7012 in the Warwick Farm Esses, September 1970, second in the race won by Geoghegan’s Lotus 59B Waggott (Lynton Hemer)
Race Record of the Repco powered Elfin 600’s…
When the first 600C was completed Garrie took it on an Asian Tour which was unsuccessful, he was fast but unreliable, failing to finish all the races he contested.
The results weren’t surprising as while the car had been fired up before the drive to Sydney and attachment its aircraft pallet, GC hadn’t had the chance to shake it down at Mallala. During practice in Singapore the car was losing oil, mechanic Bob Mills could see it but could not cross the track to signal Cooper. Garry felt the engine nip-up but it was too late to save its bearings and crank. A new crank and bearings were flown in, but incorrect baffling in the oil tank caused starvation so the car didn’t start. Graeme Lawrence won the race in his McLaren M4A Ford FVA.
In Malaysia for the Selangor GP, GC led the race until a misfire caused two pitstops for plugs, pushing hard to make up time Garrie popped a wheel off the bitumen and slid into a marshals post tearing off the right rear corner.
The car was repaired in Asia by Bob Mills, Garrie joined Mills in Japan for the Japanese Automobile Federation GP which was won by Leo Geoghegan’s Lotus 39 Repco. Cooper, second on the grid lead from the start ahead of Bartlett, Ikuzawa, Geoghegan, Roly Levis Brabham BT23 FVA and Max Stewart. GC misjudged his braking, getting the 600 bogged, restatred and then the Mlaysian misfire returned and he retied.
The car was then shipped to its new owner, Steve Holland in Hong Kong. The car was returned to Adelaide to have the rear wing mounted on the chassis instead of the suspension uprights in accordance with the new global regs post the FIA’s ’69 Monaco GP pronouncements.
Cooper borrowed the car for the fourth round of the 1969 Gold Star and led from flag to flag beating the best in Australia; Bartlett, Harvey, Geoghegan, Stewart, Allen and others despite the return of the hi-rev-range misfire later in the race. The problem was eventually diagnosed as a faulty fuel metering unit when the car later returned to Australia!
For 1970 Cooper built a lighter 600C and the 600D for his own use. Granton Harrison acquired the 600C from Steve Holland for Malcolm Ramsay to race. 600C 7011 was built for John McCormack’s car as related above.
Mal Ramsay, Elfin 600C Repco spinner at Sandown’s Shell Corner during the 1970 Gold Star round Leo G, another car and Max Stewart in the distance (Jeff Nield-autopics.com)
Cooper’s car was running late for the 1970 Gold Star, shipped to Tasmania airfreight, he started from the rear of the Symmons Plains grid and then retired with a flat battery.
Garrie was ninth at Lakeside, his Repco misfired while in third place causing a change of plugs. Max Stewart took a Mildren Waggott win, Ramsay also retired with Mac fourth in the Climax engined 600C.
At Oran Park GC was third and Ramsay fourth, Cooper and Ramsay raced under the GT Harrison Racing Team banner. McCormack’s 600C Climax was fifth.
At Warwick Farm on 6 September Geoghegan won from Cooper, Bob Muir, Rennmax BN3 Waggott and Ramsay. Mac retired on lap eight, his car now Repco 740 powered but not running on-song.
Cooper was quickest in first practice at Sandown on 13 September but broke a cam follower. Geoghegan took pole from Ramsay, Muir and Cooper. In the race Geoghegan, Cooper and Muir contested second place while John Harvey disappeared in the Jane Repco V8, a car built on Bob Britton’s Brabham BT23 jig, a variant thereof if you will.
Etcetera…
(Lynton Hemer)
John McCormack races his Elfin 600 Repco at the 1971 Warwick Farm 100, Tasman round.
That year the Tasman was dominated by F5000 machines albeit Graeme Lawrence’s Ferrari Dino 246T won the Cup with a blend of speed and reliability the F5000s lacked.
McCormack’s was the last race in which a Repco engined 600 ran on the circuits at championship level (noting Roger Harrison’s 600C Repco Australian Hillclimb Championship win at Mount Cotton in 1983) it was the end of the marvellous 2.5-litre era.
McCormack, 600C 740, Phillip Island 1970 (N Tait)
Credits…
John Lemm, Rodway Wolfe Collection, Adrian van Loon, Bob Mills Collection, Lynton Hemer, Singapore National Archives, Oldracingcars.com
Garrie Cooper’s 600D 7012, now Lotus/Ford Twin-Cam powered leads Vern Schuppan’s March 722 Ford during the 1972 Singapore GP on the wild Thomson Road Circuit.
He is heading through The Snakes, the car is sporting a bluff nose of the type Tyrrell made popular during 1971. Cooper fitted an evolution of this nose to the MR5 F5000’s raced during the ’72 Tasman by Cooper and McCormack.
Finally, Bruce Allison made the 600D Ford sing after Garrie was finished with it during his rise to the top…
primotipo... 